Actually, I was planning to finish the hull (there’s a reason I’m only showing the freeboard), then Dropbox that file and the stats all at once. I’ll just post the stats later. She’s 625′ at the waterline (closer to a cruiser), so she’s somewhat less conspicuous than Amagi… but yeah, I guess not by much.

The Type 96 shouldn’t be too bad, so long as there’s a better feed system and more power to the mounts than OTL. What the Allies really need are Bofors and Oerlikons.
Somebody previously suggested Quadmounts, which would be great if .50 cal production can handle that.

True. Just trying to avoid excessive scope creep, I guess – that extra tonnage could build another DD or two.

The type 96 really is that bad. It was incapable of dealing with aircraft from the late 30s for several reasons. Not only was the power mount to slow but the sights were unsuitable and the magazine was too small. Reloading was also slow and replacing overheated barrels was a slow and difficult process. The 40mm Bofors was superior in every way and the Pom Poms were better too. I think just about every mid caliber AA gun in the war was superior really.

No need for scope creep, just focus the design. A BC is a cruiser killer. its fast and well armed. Armor is enough to protect against cruiser guns. Torpedoes, even if good distract from its designed role. Ditch them.

The dual and quad 40mm guns were water cooled. There are one or two electrically powered centrifugal pumps under the rear over hang of the mount as well as a water/glycol tank that was usually under the mount somewhere.The traverse and elevation were controlled hydraulically with hydraulic motors which were powered by an electrically powered hydraulic pump on the mount. Ultimately everything on the mount depended on electrical power. The electrically powered AA mounts and fire control systems added greatly to the electrical loads on the ship, necessitating increased generation capacity. The ships emergency power distribution (run off the emergency diesel generators rather than the ship’s service turbo-generators) gave priority to the AA batteries over everything but the fire pumps. The Allies need to thing about going to 440V three phase AC for their new construction, as the electrical loads are only going to grow. The destroyermen would have been familar with this and the reason why as ships built in the 1930’s were already going to 440v 3 phase ac.

Agreed on the size, we’re really shooting for a Graf Spee cruiser killer/carrier escort analog. There’s no real reason they can’t go with triple turrets to increase the fire power without a large increase in tonnage. It’s essentially adding one more barrel & breach mechanism. The hard part would be setting the turret up to feed three guns. Houston had triple turrets & IIRC Alden had BB gun experience to pull examples & inspiration from. Three triple turrets have more fire power, less weight, use less materials & have reduced ship length than four twin turrets.
The type 96 cartridge is not bad, the problems came with the mount & feed. A 15 round magazine is too small for AAA. They could fairly easily develop a 25-35 round reversible scroll type magazine (the standard scroll with reversible feed lips for twin mounts) to increase the capacity. The mount had vibration problems that affected accuracy & was slow to train & elevate, but those are correctable issues. For that matter, you could make a single barrel pintle mount version like the 20mm Oerlikon.

The first ship (if any – NONE of this is canon, after all) would be a prototype, right? Give her six guns, then work on cramming 2-3 extra into the next one.

Any advantages to a pintle mount over a conventional one? All I know is that the single guns needed three guys (gun layer, captain, loader) and the duals needed seven (pointer, trainer, sight setter, four loaders).

The main advantages of the pintle mount are simplicity & ease of construction. They could have them in production & deployed, while working out the bugs (vibration, power & training & elevating speed) in the twin or quad mounts. The pintle mount is essentially a heavy post, bolted to the deck, with a swivel on top & the gun mounted with a trunnion for elevating on the swivel. Note the drum magazine in the picture. There were various types from 15-100 round drums, so they could make a 30-50 round drum for the 25mm guns.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Oerlikon_20mm_IMG_1554.jpg

I don’t know that the remote control technology of the time was up to the Helmover. The British had trouble getting a 10 mile visual range from an aircraft. It would be an very expensive weapon, sine it had an aircraft engine in it. The snorkel would have been oblivious, both visually and to radar. Probably would have worked better fired from a submarine with wire guidance. Possibly it would have been worth it for a exceptionally high value target. Plus the radio control could have been easily jammed, like the Fritz X, unless you used frequency hopping.

It was, actually, far beyond that. As far as I managed to reconstruct, the “Helmover” used pulse-position modulation system – basically an automatic telephone switchboard. The number of pulses received before pause coded the number of position on which the stepping switch should step, and thus the relay that will be powered. By using just two ten-position switches they have 98 possible codes – from 1-0 to 9-9.

This is basically a 1920s system, used on British RC target ships “Agamemnon” and “Centurion”. And not exactly easy to jam, because the individual pulse could be made quite powerful to just burn through the jamming, and aerial could be made directional, aimed away from target.

I think its one of those things where it could be technically possible, the Union is producing vacuum tubes at this point. Which means theoretically they can make anything up to and including a turing complete digital computer. However the execution is the issue. It’s the same reason they don’t have radar. Yes they have the necessary prerequisites but the knowledge necessary to implement such a system isn’t there.

Ronson Rodriguez has done a lot of good work but he is a hardware guy. I don’t think his theoretical knowledge of eletricity or logic systems goes beyond what he would have to know for his rating. That’s good enough to diagnose and repair/maintain tube powered FM radios with multiple channels. And with enough work to remake them, which he has done.

POTS phone systems are conceptually switching networks not all that dissimilar from a modern TCP/IP network in high level concept. Obviously very different in details though. They have battlefield telephone systems but from what Taylor has shown us they aren’t switched data networks. So I would give it a no. If they ever get someone to cross over who worked for Bell that could all change however. Or Ronson may come up with it on his own in time but he has bigger fish to fry.

As for radio controlled systems I think a simple Bang-Bang system could be done. The US Navy actually developed an early acoustic homing torpedo based on this principle and it was an effective uboat killer. And it wouldn’t be a huge jump from where they are right now. The utility of it would be questionable, like William said the FritzX was easy to jam.

The Fritz-X used rather primitive frequency modulated control system (and not even German designed; it was based on control system of French pre-war guided bomb, that they captured in 1940). And, the main reason why it was easy for British to jam, was because French engineers who designed the system managed to escape to Britain in 1943, and used their knowledge of the system to found weak points.

I was watching Drachinifel’s videos on youtube (highly recommended for all the 20th century warship goodness) and a thought occurred to me.

What is next for the Union in terms of warships? They are now building clones of Walker as well as the light cruiser gray. The four stacker design can only go so far developmentally. IRL the Navy moved on after the Clemson class. Should the Union work to further develop the four stacker, work on making simpler but quicker to build transitional steel hull warships or move on to something more advanced?

I remember in a past book there was talk about trying to make something akin to the Farragut class. Would the destroyermen be familiar with some of the later classes of destroyers? The Fletcher is a stretch since they came into service around the time the crew crossed over but there were a lot of classes leading up to the Fletchers that still had the 5″/38s in the definitive mk30 mounts.

Technically, there’s nothing stopping them from making a Farragut the SIZE of a Fletcher.

Assuming my crystal ball works this time, the Union’s probably going to find out that the Walkers are too small – and Gray too big – for the light ship role. I’ve got my money on a class of 2000t-ish Gold Platers, similar to Hidoiame.
After that? They need some heavier guns – we’ve previously talked about a cruiser carrying some of Amagi’s old ten-inchers.

“After that? They need some heavier guns – we’ve previously talked about a cruiser carrying some of Amagi’s old ten-inchers.”

You need at least six of them to have any practical long-range fire capability. Which means that Union would need to produce new guns, not just use the available. And ammunition is also a problem. It may be more practical to went for 13,4-inch gun, which they have on “Savoie” – so they would have commonality in weapon systems.

Don’t forget the 15-20 kiloton hull needed to support those guns. If we’re looking for a cruiser killer, all we really need is 6×10″ and 12 kT – they can use the excess for a couple of DDs and a tank battalion.

One of the major lead in items for a capital ship is its guns. They take longer to make than even the hull. I don’t think they can readily make a set of 13.4’s quickly. It would take a few years. Case in point the British KGV’s, they could have put 15 or 16 inch guns on them but it would have added at least a year, likely longer to the build time because they didn’t have the guns on hand. They had the 14’s already in stock so that’s what the Royal Navy went with.

I do agree bigger guns are needed. I’m hoping something with a 5″/38 can be discovered because that is an excellent gun and probably the best mid caliber naval gun of the era.

Something larger, in the 8 inch range would be nice for a cruiser and I think they have enough to go off of with the 4″/50s and French 13.4’s to come up with a design. But it wont be fast. 8 inchers are weird because they are small enough to be built monoblock like smaller guns but also big enough that they dont use fixed ammunition. So combine the construction methods or the 4″/50 or hopefully a 5″/38 and the breech block and loading system of the 13.4 and you get a good intermediate gun.

Reddy isn’t a fan of battlewagons, he prefers air power so I doubt we would see many battleships ordered, if any. I think Reddy’s navy will have heavy cruisers as the largest surface combatant with flat tops as the queens of the fleet.

“I do agree bigger guns are needed. I’m hoping something with a 5″/38 can be discovered because that is an excellent gun and probably the best mid caliber naval gun of the era. ”

Actually… no. It was rather poor anti-surface weapon. Slow initial velocity, not exactly good shell… The reason why 5-inch/38 served so well in surface engagements was exactly because of superior US fire control systems, which basically compensated for the mediocre performance of gun itself.

Don’t get me wrong, as dual-purpose weapon, the 5-inch/38 was truly the best in cost/weight/efficiency therms. But the major part of it’s success was not due to gun itself, but due to Mark 33 FCS and Mark 1 fire control computer.

“Reddy isn’t a fan of battlewagons, he prefers air power so I doubt we would see many battleships ordered, if any. I think Reddy’s navy will have heavy cruisers as the largest surface combatant with flat tops as the queens of the fleet.”

He is destroyer commander, so his views on carriers and battleships are mostly theoretical (and he perfectly understood that his knowledge is not absolute). And after having so much troubles with heavy armored ships (“Amagi”, Grik dreadnoughs, “Savoie”) he clearly appreciate what they could do in therms of durability and destructive power.

He’s also seen most of those armoured ships sunk by air power or destroyers – even Kurokawa came around eventually. The Union’s big gun capital ships (if any) will likely resemble an Indianapolis more than a Gneisenau.

Yes sir, it has been a long while since I have written you. I thank you for bringing me back from the hellish place the humans call “Ecuador”. I have seen insects there that … well, let us say that I will say no more. I promise, no more intrigues here in Baalkpan. Unless you specifically order them, and please sir, next time do not disavow me.

You have tasked me with the question raised by Chairman Letts about a larger ship to follow on the construction of the magnificent Fitzhugh Gray. Let me say at the outset that it is not possible for us to build a larger ship within the time frame of winning this war, and perhaps not even wit the time frame of winning the next war.

Lead time is the first big problem. The very large guns taken off the French battleship would take us five years to make, and that assumes that we can create the quality steel that would withstand the over-pressure in the tube. We then need breech blocks that would similarly withstand the pressure. These are very specialized, minister; after building a set or two of such guns (I am told six to eight per gigantic ship), what then will we do? It’s not like we’re going to build a fleet of such ships. Or are we?

The very large ships also take much time. Consider the Gray: that ship was planned almost as soon as the Battle of Baalkpan was over. It took scores of our drafts-cats months just to complete the first set of rough plans. Construction was delayed repeatedly as we discovered that what we drew, and what the humans wanted, was just wrong. The next ship in that series is being built much more quickly though even here we are encountered production delays on a near-daily basis.

The second big problem is the shipyard. Coordinating all the materials coming in and all the parts of the ship that are not made here in the Baalkpan Works, but elsewhere and brought in, is a major problem. And with all the other manufacturing issues and shortages that have plagued you since I was shipped over the Ocean (please get the hint, sir), and the need to get Cats out to the theaters with proper weapons in their hands, etc., I’d say that trying to build larger ships will magnify these problems even more.

It is not just the ship: it is the yard in which it is to be built that must be larger. We will need a larger yard and dry dock, launching area, and fitting-out pier. We need a larger staging area, more dock-side warehouses for the materials, and more roads. All that can be done; these marvelous steam powered machines for moving earth are amazing, and now that we are finally building oil-powered internal combustion engines of size we can take on construction projects that we could not have considered even two years ago. But all this takes time, and time is something that Admiral Reddy does not have.

I give you one concrete example: the new armored vehicles that we are just now building and sending to the western front. You have heard Chairman Letts say that we could use a version of these for construction both here and in Indiaa, Madagascar, and even Africa — simply remove the armor and put tools at the front end, like a scraper blade. The construction companies at every outpost want such vehicles yesterday. We’d need some of these just to enlarge the yard here; imagine the colorful verbs General Alden would use if we told him that he could not have these vehicles in Indiaa.

The Madraas Works certainly isn’t going to be able to help us; the steel made there is barely above the level of what the humans call “pig-iron”. The Manilla Works are formidable, but Baalkpan has capacity that they simply do not have.

My advice, Mr. Minister, is to build several more of the Gray class cruiser and more of the improved Walker class destroyer. I remind the Minister of the human military saying — quantity has a quality all its own.

Instead of building big ships, perhaps we could just take them from the French?

It has come to the Navy’s attention that due to Sular’s late arrival to the United Homes and to the war against the Grik, you may be unaware of recent events; as such, the Department has deemed it necessary to remind you of certain information pertaining to the Large Surface Combatant Project (LSCP), courtesy of Rear Admiral Seek Taan-Gol.

1. The LSCP is meant to explore all options in building a class of “big gun” capital ships. All means all.

2. The Navy is aware of the time and resources needed to design and build large naval guns in excess of eight inches, and nevertheless believes that the construction of such pieces should be considered. This includes the use of preexisting guns from the late battlecruiser Amagi, and guns currently under construction for the Imperator-class of the Republic of Real People.

2a. The Navy is aware of the time and resources needed to design and build a class of big gun capital ships, and nevertheless believes that the construction of such a class should be considered. The number of ships in that class is, again, classified and ongoing.

2b. The Navy is aware of the logistical difficulties in constructing large ships. The USS Madras (CV-8, completed late 1944) has a displacement of nine thousand tons and a length exceeding eight hundred feet at the waterline, much larger than USS Gray. Her late sister USS Baalkpan Bay (CV-5, completed early 1944) and her two sisters currently under construction follow the same specifications. A steel-hulled ship exceeding their tonnage (if not their dimensions) is significantly more challenging, but within the Alliance’s capability.

3. The Navy would like to remind you of Madraas Works’ progress, reporting gradual improvements in quality over the Grik “steelwork,” as does Baalkpan in smelting Amagi’s uptime steel.

4. The Navy would like to remind you that:
a) Given intelligence provided by Oberleuitnants Fiedler and Hoffman, the Walker-class destroyers and Gray-class cruisers may be insufficient to deal with potential threats to carrier groups.
b) Captain Reddy’s capture of Savoie, no matter how fortuitous, is not an event considered likely to be repeated. As such, other such events are not factored into Allied war planning.

It is the collective understanding of this Ministry, and of the government in general, that when a public official is given a lawful directive by a higher authority, that the servant will research and consider all possible options pertaining to the completion of said directive, to the best of their ability.

Failure to complete said directive is one thing; excuses, justifications and insubordinate behaviour are intolerable among government officials, no matter their assumed political connections. The Large Surface Combatant Program has been reassigned to Rear Admiral Taan-Gol. You are tasked with assisting him in any way necessary, effective immediately.

Kindly remember why you were assigned to Ecuador to begin with, and bear in mind the Department’s ability to reassign you again. Perhaps Kriss-maas Island may be more to your taste.

I can just see the reaction to a navy department memo/letter similar to the above. The design crews being ordered to build what cannot be built in the time ordered. There would be a mutiny and I suspect that in the end the navy department would be replaced but prior to that in the tear or so that it took lots of heads (the wrong ones) would roll and careers would be potentially temporarily destroyed. in the end they would be restored but the temporary losses in what production they had could be devastating to the production.

One way or another, they still need to at least start planning for larger steel hulled ships. A small, fast hull of 9-10k tons, using four turbines & screws should be able to work up 30-31 knots or so. They could build two versions on the basic hull. One could be a light/medium carrier with three sixteen ship squadrons (either 2 fighter & 1 multi-role bomber or 1 fighter & 2 bomb squadrons). The other hull could be either a cruiser killer with 6 x 10″-11″ guns & a DP secondary, or a pure carrier escort type with a main armament of an ass load of DP artillery. They are already building hulls of comparable size with the current carriers, so they have the facilities & dry docks. The propulsion machinery is there. The heavy guns could be built by the Republic.
Think a smaller version of the USS Ranger (CV-4), escorted by a larger USS Atlanta (CL-51) type escorts & DDs. By the time these types got built, they would have the next generation of fighters & attack aircraft for the air group. A task force of two carriers would be a credible strike force & fast enough to stay away from any heavy LOT units. If they are accompanied by the cruiser killers also, they should be able to deal with anything the LOT has now.
Granted, this isn’t in the immediate future. A program like this would take up to a decade to pull off. On the other claw, they would be steadily improving their tech along the way.

” A task force of two carriers would be a credible strike force & fast enough to stay away from any heavy LOT unit”

The usual question: and what if League would start to advance? What it they would attack the point, that Union Navy need to protect? What would your task force do, if it could NOT just run away & forced to stand and fight?

Not to mention, that the League is not just sitting here idly too, and by the time Union would have more or less capable planes, they would probably have locally-build planes & some carrier capabilities too. They have MUCH more technical personnel than Union, and also quite a lot more peoples with at least some scientific education and training.

But nobody’s ordered anything yet Donald, it’s a study to explore what can be ordered. In my experience, the options usually come with a timeframe (this can be done in four years, this can be done in six…), so finish the study, then make decisions on what can or can’t be done.

Alexey, by that kind of logic, the allies should just give up & let the LOT do whatever they want. If not, then they have to develop something, because 4-piper DDs, CLs & wooden carriers won’t do the job. They need to have something on hand to use if the LOT gets ambitious. If they have to stay & fight in some situations, so be it. The US carriers did so at Guadal Canal & the escort carriers fought off the IJN off Samar & while they suffered heavy losses in both areas, they pulled through.

Justin, I wasn’t talking about reproducing the Ranger, but something similar on a smaller scale, like the Independence class light carriers. They might not be the best carriers, but they’d be better than nothing. For anything larger than about 9,000 tons, they’re going to need more powerful engines to be able to move at 30+ knots. They could do a 12,000-13,000 ton hull & move it at 28 knots, which might be a better first carrier & escort hull to start with.

Seems like you read my mind, Lou. I’ve got twelve thousand tons, 29-30 knots at 78k shp. Both still works in progress:https://imgur.com/a/nJs58iE

Agreed that the Union needs to temper need with practicality when designing and building any larger hulls. But Samar was more of a close call than a victory, Kurita believing that Halsey’s BBs/CVs were on the way and chickening out; Alexey has a point in wanting more staying power.

Justin, very nice! If you’re using SpringSharp, it tends to overestimate HP needs vs. speed. USS Ranger was almost 15,000 tons & with 54,000 hp did 29.3 knots. Wasp at the same tonnage did 29.5 with 70,000 hp, so it depends on hull shape as well. Something around 12,000 tons with two current Walker power plants (54k hp est.) should be able to get to 29 knots or so, maybe more, depending on the hull fineness. Something needing internal space like a carrier would need a fuller hull shape.
I see you’ve got the stack arranged like the Ranger did. Our guys should have an idea of how our carriers were basically laid out & all the others after Ranger had a single or multiple (Independences) stacks on one side, either offset outboard or tall enough to keep the exhaust gases as far from the landing approaches as possible. Is her bow enclosed? Probably a good thing for weathering a straaka.
With the BC, I might remove one set of torpedo tubes & add AAA. What are you going with for a main battery?

Granted Samar was more of a “we survived it” affair, but it shows what aggression & desperation can accomplish. If the IJN had pressed the issue, they would have destroyed our task force, but they were more concerned with preserving their fleet, which didn’t work out too well in the long run.

To be fair Lou, most naval architects of the time overestimated power requirements as well. More often than not ships outperformed their planned speed by a little bit if they were built properly. And the developer states the use the same equations that 20th century naval architects would use. So the power estimations are “realistic” not that they show real world number but they show what a real world architect of the time would come up with.

Lou: Thanks. Touche on the speeds; the hull’s probably going to be slim anyway though, since the Cb is .54 and Baalkpan’s likely still using “Walker and Gray, but fatter” as their design principle. Maybe the next class?

The stack’s configured that way because I assumed a triple screw and a three by four boiler arrangement. Can’t move all three to starboard without screwing up the hangar deck, so split the centre boiler to both sides like Saipan; probably’ll have to change to two by six later.
Not sure – is the Independence closed? That’s the one I was modelling off.

10” mains (Amagi’s), 4” secondaries. I can get rid of the second torp set – honestly, it’s because I always miss with just one – but I figure a broadside of three twin 4”/50s and six twin 25s is enough… and if it isn’t, nothing will be.

Matt: True, but none of them have formal architecture training. They’re literally doing it by dead reckoning against other ship classes like Lou is.

Justin, no the Ranger’s bow was open. I’m not sure how the other carriers managed to get their stacks to one side. I know the Lexington class had 16 boilers & managed to trunk them all to the one stack. I think the Ranger may just have been too narrow, or they were still playing with different designs. She only had six boilers, so maybe the later. The Yorktown class looks to be a 3,3,3 boiler arrangement trunked to starboard.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Yorktown-class_carrier_technical_drawing_1953.jpg

Some feedback on the CB design. I would ditch the torpedo tubes. While many battleships and battle cruisers carried them at first they proved to not be useful. The only time a capital ship potentially torpedoed another was the KGV and Bismark and that’s unconfirmed.

I would add at least one more main gun turret aft. 6 guns is pretty low but doable. 8 is more practical. The Union is having to make up a lot of ground in fire control systems and 6 slow firing large caliber guns are going to take a longtime to walk in. The more guns the faster the aiming process and the higher chance you score a hit. Even with radar assist in WW2 it usually took multiple salvos to land a hit with BB class guns.

I’m assuming the smaller guns are 4″/50’s and 25mm’s right? I’m sure there are plenty of 50’s there as well but they aren’t rendered. The more AA the better and I think you could place some more where the torpedo mounts were.

By the Heavens, there is no offense intended. While I have not yet been to Kriss-Mass Island, I am told that I am not missing anything.

The Navy may demand all it wishes, sir, but someone has to design and build the ships. The designs of the LSCP are all admirable, but at some point we must go from rough ideas and drawings to putting rivets through steel (and not that pig-ir–, er, basic steel that Madraas still produces). The Americans, particularly the ones that arrived more recently on that cursed prison ship, are fond of telling us how their home country “revved up” production, but when one listens closely, one realizes that they had a substantial production base to rev up FROM. Their country, prior to being attacked, had already done considerable war production for their allies. So it was possible for them to build everything from the amazing fleet carriers to the just as amazing “Liberty” freighter ships, and quickly. The Americans had dozens of shipyards and thousands of factories to feed them.

We, alas, do not. Consider the recent information sent by this office to your secretary on steel production — that alone demonstrates the quandary. As much of the steel is spoken for to build basic weapons (everything from rifle barrels and helmets to aircraft engines and ships), we are tasked with building a new class of LSCP from what is left. We are constantly exploring new mining sites here in Borno (the truce with the northern “neighbors” is holding and this is fortunate”), and Madraas can at least ship pig ir–, er, basic steel to us for re-smelting.

But consider the suggested design of one LSCP class, the “Indianapolis” class: while “only” about 10,000 ‘tons’, and thus within the range of the planned new production of the mines from Ku-cheeng, much of that will need to be alloy steel, particularly for armor and for hardened parts used in boilers and machinery. We are only beginning to make that type of steel. That ship took the Americans over two years to build, and they had everything they needed to start. And it has the eight inch gun, where your lead ship designer suggests that we need much larger.

You therefore see the problem. The LSCP will take us at least four years to design and build. What do we give Admiral Reddy to fight the war in the meantime?

Since you have failed to acquire the information yourself during your ‘absence’ in Sular, the Navy has repeatedly informed that over the last three years, the Alliance has exchanged its crossbows for Allin-Silvas and its feluccas for Clippers.
The Union alone – to say nothing of the Republic – has converted three Homes in excess of 13,000 tons into carriers, has commissioned three 9,000 ton purpose-built carriers, is currently building two more of the same, and is also currently scrapping a battlecruiser made of modern steel with a full displacement of forty five thousand tons.

You will also be interested to know that rifles, aircraft engines, and ships actually cannot be built with “pig iron.” I invite you to leave the comfort of the Baalkpan Advanced Training Centre and convince both the Americaans and the men and women of the home front otherwise.

The entire point of the LSCP, Mister Rear Admiral, is to have something to give to Captain Reddy to fight, if not this war, then the next war.
(OOC: the first Fletchers, South Dakotas and Essexes weren’t even commissioned until long after Pope sank – should more four-stackers have been built instead?)

Whether two years or ten, the alternatives are to roll over and let the League have its way, or to callously waste this Navy against their fleets like a Dominion penal battalion.
With the latter in mind, the Navy would also like to inform you that the man who said “quality has a quantity all its own” was Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who also said “one death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.” From what the humaans have told Baalkpan, it would be best if Captain Reddy does not hear the slightest hint of using the Soviet Union as a role model for the United Homes.

With such a cannot-be-done attitude, Walker, Mahan and Amagi would still be on the bottom of Baalkpan Bay, the Grand Alliance and its allies would not exist, and we would be standing on Fort Atkinson awaiting the next Grik fleet. The duty of the United Homes Navy is to fight the enemies of the Union and the Alliance; an officer of that same Navy, as many have, can and will rise to any challenge and face it with tenacity, creativity and intelligence – not letters full of excuses.

Matt: yeah, I’m kind of iffy on the torpedo tubes too. On one hand, the IJN didn’t really have anything to show for their cruisers’ torps; OTOH, that was more to do with USN radar, which the League likely does not have. I’ll ditch the amidships ones – they’re blocking the boats anyway.

I’d add a fourth turret, but that means either increasing displacement, or sacrificing armour and speed; besides, without radar, all they’ll probably do is miss faster. I’ll try again with 13,000-15,000 tons and four turrets anyway.
There’s SpringSharp if you want to give it a shot yourself (http://www.springsharp.com/).

You got it – 4”/50s and Type 96s. Figured the 25s would be enough for close-range AA… and I couldn’t find a good model for a Browning. Oh well, something to work on for v2.

What about “Bowler”-type active acoustic torpedoes? Rather crude design – basically two sound transducers set at right angle to the torpedo course, and a pair of corresponding hydrophones. When one of hydrophones catches echo, reflecting from the target (say, the from the port), the relay close, and explosive bolt threw the rudder on side. The torpedo start the port circulation.

This idea was explored by British in 1942, basically as “second chance” for torpedo. The idea was, that if torpedo missed the target on the straight run, the “Bowler” system would threw torpedo into circulation when it would be near the target, thus giving the additional chance to hit the enemy.

@Justin, keep in mind battlecruisers are not stealthy, even at night. So radar or not you can’t exactly launch them at an enemy unawares. The Japanese also had much better torpoedos with considerably longer range. The Union’s are nowhere close in performance. With some former Amagi crew they are likely to improve them but they aren’t making Long lances tomorrow.

And again, nobody, the Germans, Japanese, Americans, British etc was able to get any real use out of capital ship armed torpedos. For them to work you have to launch close without the enemy knowing you are there. The combination of torpedo and submarine is really ideal. If you want to do it on a surface ship then MTB’s and destoryers are your best bet.

What are the stats on the current CB design? I can give helpful feedback on the design but need to know a bit more. Can you post the data report? Then I can model it as well and we can collab on refinements. If the community is interested I can make a Github respository and we can make it a community effort.

I really wish we had something better than the type 96 to use as an intermediate AA gun. The Japanese replaced the British Pom Poms with it which was a bad idea. The Pom Poms are actually superior.

While you are right that the guns wont be super accurate without radar, the benefits or more main guns was a well understood principle. Its one of the main factors in the development of all big gun dreadnoughts. The battle of Tsushima showed that at the ranges engagaements with capitol ships would occur, the size of the main gun battery of pre-dreadnoughts meant it took far too long to dial in their aim. Sure they will miss faster but they will also get on target faster. The more guns, the faster you can correct your aim even with radar which wasn’t a guaranteed hit.

@Alexey, check out the Mk24 “mine” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_mine it was a very successful passive acoustic homing torpedo used by the US in the war. Very similar in principle. It was called a mine for security purposes. Ultimately it was credited with 37 submarines sunk. The Union can make hydrophones, we know this because the sonar array of Walker was repaired after being sunk, and the hydrophones had to be wrecked. Not to mention they are making copies of Walker with the same capabilities now. You could make a pretty simple and straight forward homing system using a bang-bang control system wired to hydrophones placed in stereo. The farther apart they are they better the stereo width which means the easier the system could determine the direction of the contact. Use dymanic microphones, they are powered by the incoming sound waves which means the stronger the contact the higher the voltage. Bias the control system to favor the higher input voltage. So whichever mic has the louder return would impart a higher voltage and in turn cause the torpedo to turn towards it. Simplicity in itself. The downsides are the same as any early homing torpedo. Its very stupid, no discrimination between sounds, it goes to what is loudest which means ship launched is dangerous, best to be air dropped as the Mk24 was. Also using a bang system means it has very coarse adjustment. But ships are big so it doesn’t have to be precision. Sound isolation is also a problem. The Mk24 gets around this by using electric propulsion which isn’t nearly as loud as other methods. We haven’t heard any updates on electric torpedo development in a minute but the last we saw them they were not ready for deployment. So the union needs decent batteries. However the operational requirements make this a bit easier. If we are going air dropped and surface ship only (as all WW2 torpedos were) then they dont have to run long. Presumably planes will drop their payload relatively close to target. So a runtime of a few minutes with a speed no less than 30 knots is probably good enough for most uses. Anything above and beyond that opens up the engagement envelope but if we are conducting a torpedo attack my napkin math says 30 knots (55.5kph) at a launch range of 5000 yards (4572 meters) means the batteries need to last around 5 minutes.

This thread is getting really long guys. Maybe we should start a new one? WordPress seems to only allow a few sub threads before it just becomes a long list.

I believe they duplicated the Amagi’s secondary directors for the Gray. I don’t know if they were able to modify it for DP use though.
As far as heavy guns go, they could swap turbine tech with the Republic for those. The Republic should be able to build a good 10 or 11″ gun for a cruiser killer type while they work on heavier 13.4″ guns.

Directors, yes. But fire control computers? They are very problematic. The US Mark I fire control computer was literally a science fiction coming into reality for its days; it was incredibly complicated & required high-precise manufacturing to produce. I seriously doubt that Alliance could create anything like that in short therms.

“As far as heavy guns go, they could swap turbine tech with the Republic for those. The Republic should be able to build a good 10 or 11″ gun for a cruiser killer type while they work on heavier 13.4″ guns.”

A probability, yes. The Rep gun tech probably is not exactly up-to-date, but since Alliance is not limited by any displacement limits, it could afford its guns being heavier than contemporary.

I think if they got their hands on one they could reproduce it. You are right that the US fire control computers were a work of art but the magic sauce was in their design, not necessarily in their componentry. They aren’t like VT fuses that used technology that the union simply cant replicate.

Just like an enigma machine I think they could replicate the hardware even if they don’t understand the math and engineering behind how it works. It becomes a bit more problematic if they want to pair it with a gun system that has different ballistics (that means not just copying but modifying tech) but if they found a Fletcher in a similar condition to walker then they have everything they need to replicate the function of all important systems. Fortunately WW2 was well before we started making electronics that you couldn’t reverse engineer without an electron microscope. If you look up the internals of a MK1 FCS you will find its all gears, pulleys, relays…… and a differential.

That being said they are rapidly approaching a hard limit to what they can build based on not just materials limitations but also theoretical knowledge. They have already hit the limit of what they can design on their own but fast forward just a decade and any warships that come over will start having transistorized electronics. There is a massive knowledge gap. Even if an ET could explain to them how one works they lake the materials science to make them. Early transistors used germanium. Where are they getting that?

“I think if they got their hands on one they could reproduce it. You are right that the US fire control computers were a work of art but the magic sauce was in their design, not necessarily in their componentry. They aren’t like VT fuses that used technology that the union simply cant replicate. ”

I doubt that. Those things – fire control computers – were incredibly complicated, with extremely carefully balanced mechanical parts and electrical components. Just look how complicated this thing is:

Numerous switches, microrelays, solenoids, very fine mechanics. And most of solutions aren’t just obvious. I.e. it would be impossible to realize “why they do this exactly like that” by observing the item itself.

“Just like an enigma machine I think they could replicate the hardware even if they don’t understand the math and engineering behind how it works”

Nah, it’s impossible. The Enigma machine was copied exactly because British mathematicians cracked the mathematical principles of its work. By just copying the fire control computers without understanding, you would produce a fine copy, which just wouldn’t work, because all internal parts are wrong, relays are not aligned, solenoids aren’t acting properly.

Amagi had a 4.7″ AAA suite & by the time she came through, should have had at least an adequate fire control system for them. Personally, if I was going to duplicate her guns, I’d have started with the 4.7″ DP guns & matching directors & fire control system. They have almost the same range (slightly less) & about double the rate of fire. They might be able to recalibrate the 4.7″ fire control unit to account for the 5.5″ ballistics, but that would be iffy.

Some of the parts in the Mark 8, resemble the guts of some electro-mechanical phone exchanges. A lot of stepper switches in there. There are other ways (albeit slower) to get central fire direction with out an electro-mechanical computer.

Since I read hints in ROB, I did my version of a redesigned Nancy airframe, built to handle the 10 cylinder radial. She’s larger & got a few other things going for her also. The performance may not seem like much, but I’ve been rechecking the old 1920s aircraft performance data & realized I’d been highly optimistic on some of mine. I’ll fix the others later. Here she is:https://www.deviantart.com/loupy59/art/PB-6B-Nina-v3-785074938

Very nice, Lou. Going to be a few surplus Nancy’s, though. If U=112 still has her hanger, would one fit in? Since there’s not much of a LOT long range air patrol that we know of, I had the crazy idea of them taking a Nancy around the Cape, establish a temporary shore base for the Nancy (so you don’t have to keep folding it up again),and do some scouting inland from the coast.

Thanks! I’m not sure if a Nancy would fit or not. It would depend mostly on whether the fuselage can be taken apart to be shortened enough to fit in the sub’s storage locker. Where were you thinking of scouting? The Cantet’s, with some extra fuel, should be able to scout as far as the Congo River from a base on the north west Republic coast.

Ocean’s already there. Unless they want to land the Cantet on a beach. I just thought it could be a small-scale advance operation; disembark the Nancy & some supplies, they fly off, U-112 submerges and does its sub thing, Nancy comes back and lands on the water, refuels from U-112. But then, the seaplane base at Cabo was a non-starter, too, so guess I’ll have to scale back on putting the peyote buds in the morning oatmeal. Might think of something like 10-cyl radials and Lemurian pump technology for jet boats up the Zambezi…

It fires to the sides & rear. The bar coming down from the glass act to stop it from getting into the prop arc. More of a safety feature, since the prop arc doesn’t come closer than about a foot from the fuselage. Moving it from side to side would be difficult, so I’d go with either a cut down version or one mounted on each side.

how much of the RRP production capacity is maxed out? could the Alliance give them the plans for the tanks? much closer to africa & they have railheads up by the Teetgak forest already. About the tanks, to use the old british vernacular, with the “female” tanks they have now will they develop “male” canon armed tanks, perhaps with the 3″/23? Plus, is the RRP going to start building their artillery to use smokeless powder propellant & bursting charges? Perhaps a version with a reduced length recoil system, again for a future afv?

they used 6-pounder QF’s in the mark I british tanks, in the hull sponsons. The allies drivetrain is more reliable than the early marks, the extra weight should be acceptable, if the hull is strong enough, and large enough for mounting.

IMO it would be better to move to smaller, turreted designs instead of the early rhombiods. They are large, slow, thin skinned and take a lot of resources. They are also an evolutionary dead end and the destroyermen should know it. You can probably build and crew several FT types for the materials and manpower of one landship.

I would think SP’s or TD’s would be easier to build, and make more efficient use of the limited horsepower, pushing more weight in the weapons than in armor. Also, with limited speed, bringing up the rear makes for less traffic jams in the advance. JMHO. Paul, I like your suggestion about railheads, they’re critical for moving heavy, limited-mileage equipment.

As I understand it, Sherman tracks had a longer life than Oanzer tracks, but I will defer to Alexey or the other scholars on the board to expand on that issue.

What they don’t show is that in WWI the gun was run by a 3 man crew. The gunner, a loader who swapped out the mags and a scout who carried extra mags and provided flank and rear security. The automatic rifle squad was part of a larger section and platoon that would be in action at the same time. They usually advanced in waves about 50 to 100 yards apart and the first wave was about 100 yards behind the creeping barrage. Walking fire (also called marching fire) was primarily suppressive fire during the rushes.

They don’t just get up and walk towards the enemy trenches. It done by rushes, where you get up from a shell hole and move to the next shell hole. Plus the next wave is using their automatic rifles and rifle grenades to lay suppressive fire on the machine guns. That’s also why the leading wave is only about a 100 yards behind the creeping barrage. The key to suppressing MG’s was the coordinated use of auto-rifles with rifle grenades. According to the manuals and some WWII & Korea vets I’ve talked to, a good man can put a rifle grenade through a window at 200 yards. The first wave was heavy on auto-rifles and hand bombers. The suppression from the auto-rifles and rifle bombers was to allow the hand bombers to get close enough to use hand grenades. Usually the platoon was divided into two sections and each section constituted a wave. The biggest problem with green troops was that they didn’t use cover very well between rushes or the coordination between the auto-rifle men, the rifle bombers and the hand bombers was poor. The Germans by 1917 tended to put their MG’s in shell holes, not in an emplacement. If you know where the emplacement is; artillery can hit it. The Germans tended to pull out of their trenches during a barrage and disperse into shell holes. Usually the first trench line was very lightly held and they waited for the attackers to get into the first trench line and then counterattack from the flanks. Infantry Combat in Great War in 1917 and 1918 was very different from earlier in the war. Hollywood has given everybody a false image of the way the late war was fought. By 1917 even the British weren’t doing the walk into the machine guns like they did in the Somme. Think of it more like a ballet with many dancers. Infantry by 1917 was combined arms.

As the December 7, 1941 anniversary of World War II fast approaches, it seems that when or how-ever you play with time travel there’s a lot of human political and economic social history, culture and technology that gets mischievously lost in the teleportation-transportation business.This reoccurring time and history paradox becomes all too obviously self- evident when conjecturing or contemplating Taylor’s pre teleportation insertion history of the League of Tripoli.

A Referenced Example
Implementing and Enforcement – The Treaty of Versailles

21st November 1917
German High Seas Fleet arrives at Rosyth, En-route for internment in Scapa Flow

December 8, 1918
Naval action in the Caspian between British and Bolshevik vessels.

Project B-June and July 1921
Note: Off the Virginia coast, Billy Mitchell amassed an armada of airplanes as the 1st Provisional Air Brigade and ordered exhaustive bombing practice against anchored captured warships near Langley Field.
“The 1st Provisional Air Brigade bombers sank a German destroyer first, followed by an armored light cruiser and then one of the world’s largest war vessels, the German battleship Ostfriesland, followed by the U.S. battleship Alabama–and later the battleships New Jersey and Virginia.”

Query:
Was there a Washington Naval Treaty ever entered into by the major naval powers?
Was there a Lend Lease Agreement made between Great Britain and The United States?
If Not then there could be no transfer of 4 stack Destroyers to Great Britain and the HMS Campbeltown-USS Buchanan could not have participated in a nonexistent
St. Nazaire Raid or Dieppe Raid

Note: Operation Chariot-St Nazaire Raid
Operation Jubilee-Dieppe Raid

Just some minor details for one to consider as we transition into the Christmas Season and a remembrance of the Ardennes winter offensive.

As I recall it, many Alliance/ Union Cavalry units are still equipped with the breech loading version of the Allin-Silva smoothbore carbines. While this weapon has been very effective against the Grik and other comparatively primitively equipped foes, against the League this will without a doubt prove generally inadequate. While having the ability to fire buck and ball is great, having a single shot weapon against even older repeating firearms is a considerable disadvantage.

While the Blitzer-Bug and handguns are great for close quarters combat, having a carbine or short rifle that can be used like a proper rifle while dismounted, but still capable of being conveniently fired from “horse” back will be critical for the continued usability of the cavalry.

I foresee a few possibilities here that could be implemented by the Alliance with reasonable quickness.

Firstly, we might see the adoption of a shorted bolt action rifle as the Alliance gradually modernize their standard infantry arms, and some become available for modification and use by the cavalry. There is historical precedent for this with various cavalry carbines and dragoon rifles.

Secondly, but less likely would be the adoption of some sort of lever action rifle. This would be fairly close to ideal for firing from horseback, and could use ammunition of calibers the Alliance already produces or possesses(.30-06, .30-40, .45acp or .45 long colt). Alternately, 11mm (10.6mm) ammunition like the Republic produces could be suitable. Of course, if the lever gun was to fire a spitzer cartridge, it would have to be top feeding or feed from a box mag, not from a tube.

Good observations, but there are a couple of misunderstandings here. The only smoothbore Allin-Silvas are the 20 gauge variants, intended for close work by the infantry–and there are “buck and ball” loads, though the majority will be loaded with “grikshot.” And the bore diameter is limited to what the receiver is capable of accepting. That’s why there’s no 12 gauge. Few of these are with Union cavalry, because they aren’t supposed to CHARGE any organized defense. They fight more like dragoons or mounted riflemen. Further, few Allin-Silvas in service are actual “conversions” anymore, but purpose made with barrels screwed into separate receivers. For reference, compare the 1866 Allin conversion to the 1868–which would ultimately evolve further into the 1873 (in .45-70) and its many variants. In contrast to the historical US carbine, the Allin-Silvas still have a shortened full length stock, much like the Philippine Constabulary Krags would later. In any event, Union cavalry carbines in the West fire the same .50-80 cartridge as the rifles. The same is increasingly true for Impie dragoons in the East.

There is no .45 long Colt cartridge in production, and only a few .44-40s have been specially made. That might change, because it’s a fine round, but not well suited to potentially long range (> 150 yds) military rifle applications. The problems with pistol use is that it’s a non-starter in autoloaders. It’s too long and has a rimmed cartridge. They’d have to come up with a whole big new pistol, like a Desert Eagle, not only to feed the shells, but tame the recoil. Even with “full house” black powder rifle loads, (amazingly close to .44 Magnum) recoil is prohibitively intense in SAA Colt-size revolvers. That’s why special reduced power pistol loads were available for them back in the day. With full house loads, they’d need to beef a SAA up into something like a Ruger Blackhawk and recoil would still be greater than ideal for a service pistol–that weighs more than its 6 shot capacity really justifies. I can see them being made for scouts, explorers, even post war civilian hunters, but not for combat.
On the other hand, the Repubs and Nussies use revolvers. In the Nussie’s case, because that was the only thing they knew, and they’re rather large. In the Repub’s case, it was the best way to boost the power of handguns THEY were familiar with to Grik or scary booger killing levels.

Back to your topic, being a fan of leverguns myself, I’ve never had serious issues with prone shooting and think that was probably an excuse for governments to justify not purchasing the more expensive weapons. They ARE a little more complicated than an ’03 or Mauser, but not a Krag. And with actions like the 1886 or 1895 Winchester, they’re plenty strong enough for whatever you want to feed them. If you want a pointy bullet, go with the ’95. And I agree entirely that, for staying on target through repeated shots with powerful cartridges, nothing beats a lever gun. Not even an M1 or M14. (At least for me).
As always, don’t read too much into any of this, story wise. These are just my own philosophical musings. If anyone at the Baalkpan Arsenal has had similar thoughts, they’ll still be most moved by “lots of easy good” is better than “a little difficult best.”

Firing prone with a lever gun isn’t a problem I agree. Just turn the gun to the side. No more complicated or upsetting to sight picture than working a bolt. The real issues are, reloading if you don’t have a gate loader. The slow reloading process, no stripper clips on tube mags. And finally tube magazines can vary the balance point and barrel harmonics of the rifle depending on how many rounds are loaded.

You do a box mag level gun like the 1895 but experience showed they are more expensive to make than bolt guns, even Mausers. And they let dirt and muck in much easier. I think these could be worked out if someone put in the effort but a bolt gun is a much more straight forward and elegant solution to the problem.

Rotating bolts also have more positive primary extraction and while nobody could have known it at the time, are a better stepping stone to modern semi auto weapons. Modern rifles are essentially the same type of rotating bolt just with a piston unlocking it instead of your hand.

A more pressing concern is that cavalry in the modern age of machinegun’s are a liability attacking infantry. The League would chew them up no matter what weapons they had. That doesn’t mean the horse or meenak is done for. You can use them for scouting and mobility but tactical cavalry attacks just don’t work when automatic weapons are involved.

What’s the intended future role of a scout element (long range or short)? At this point, with the exception of Southeast Africa and parts of India, the terrain is more first-growth jungle, with few road networks. The LRDG concept would work well in Southwest Africa, in tandem with the existing rail lines to bring up supplies. But I’d stick with horses/meanies/kravaaks since they are more maneuverable, can live off the land to some degree, are lighter to ship, and don’t otherwise require a long ‘tail’.

For the LRDG, I’d like to see a scout car (or a 3/4 ton weapons carrier with a light mortar, twin M2’s or Derby gun), as well as maybe a P1-R with stretched wings for STOL. Weapons remaining the standard mix, but make sure that there are some Mausers or ’03’s mixed in for long-range sniping, as well as air-cooled Brownings.

I agree with Charles that the LOT will be an absolutely different kettle of fish, but for now, focus on the land-based elements. Maybe develop a supply arrangement that can travel with animal-based scouts.

Still think, however, that they need to start developing STOL or long-range land aircraft for land-based recon. They’ve got the Cantets that seem to fit that range well, as well as production lines for a Buzzard sized aircraft with longer wings and wheels.

Against modern infantry cavalry units will use dragoon tactics using the horse to bring them rapidly to the battle then fighting as inventory. Making Springfield clones with stripper clips is possible, but due to the League of Tripoli (LOT) having air cover cavalry will have difficulty getting close. Basically I don’t see much change coming in the next few books. Against the LOT more capable aircraft will be needed more than Cavalry carbens

I’d expect a variety of books. There would be all the official manuals, technical manuals and so on for the ship. I assume universal literacy for the crew on board at the time the Sandy Cat was abandoned, and obviously you need these manuals to make the ship work.

I’d expect a few books in the wardroom. I’m not Navy/ex-Navy so I have no idea what books might ordinarily be there, but there’d be a few.

I’d expect at least some of the crew and officers to have books. For the crew, since Sandy Cat was not a naval ship at the time she was delivering P40s, the crew likely had small berths or shared such; so they might have a few books. Some of those might be books only Dennis Silva could love…

But a few books — literature? A book or two of poetry? Maybe someone working on an educations so a textbook or two?

most likely there were trade magazines around the ship in various area’s. You might find a Radio Armateur handbook or QST magazines in the Radio Room. Some day Taylor will give us a list if he can give a reason to do so.

So new topic for discussion. What many of the destroyermen consider a holy grail tech, something the League couldn’t hope to match. Radar.

So what’s stopping them from making it? Well it’s not exactly easy to make. The bare essentials are there, they have radio and radar is essentially bouncing radio waves off of things.

The reality is much harder than that. You could in theory make a simple directional transmitter and a reciever tuned to a given band and blast away. In a sense that is what the earliest radar experiments were. But the hard part is getting useful data out of them. We have some clever guys like Ronson who understand a good bit about electronics but we don’t have mathematicians and theorists. They would be needed to get any useful data out of such a system.

As things stand right now, if they had a working theory on radar operation I think a low frequency continuous wave system not unlike Chain Home could be done. Radar becomes really useful when you get into higher frequencies which need a cavity magnetrometer and a pulse doppler system requires at least some level of electronic computing capability even if it’s analog.

If they weren’t in a war and had the luxury to experiment I think they would figure out a crude system in a few years. But the best bet is to have a ship or aircraft cross over that had its own radar set. By this point in the war they are becoming pretty sophisticated. Enough for gunfire targeting. Even destroyers had this capability by the time the books are in. At least Allied ones did. Not sure if the Germans ever got radar targeting going. I know the Japanese didn’t and their sets were mostly reserved for large ships.

I think even with something to copy making cavity magnetrons and other special components will take time to back engineer. It takes time to make the components of a reasonable size, longevity, and reliability.

Oddly enough, the Germans found out about the cavity magnetron from downed British aircraft but decided to stick with other systems for various reasons. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and modern radars are solid state anyways so the cavity magnetron while a big leap is not the end all be all in radar.

Real quick, I’m working on the CEM for Pass of Fire. What–besides tanks and MTBs–needs specs and description in the appendix? Also, I’ll be getting the page proofs for ROB before long. Start putting your lists of typos, etc. together! You WILL get credit:)

You mentioned the 10 cylinder radials had a bump in power. Those specs need to be changed. I’d leave the speed of the P-1Cs either unchanged or up very little (@ 5 mph) from DD though, due to the massive drag of the airframe at high speed.

That’s true, and I had all that figured out once, with the help of my aeronautical engineer pal, but those notes have lost themselves. Maybe we can re-figure it out here? Put it on the Wiki, if nothing else. Same goes for the HP of the 6 cylinder MTB/tank engines. Had all that sorted out but left it out of the narrative to avoid distracting “technical dissertations.” Unfortunately, an awful lot of older established tech notes have mysteriously vanished. (I actually had a binder full of them, with pics, drawings, specs, the works, but something happened to it). I hesitate to speculate publicly. Thankfully, MOST of the specs had been included in the appendix of the books, and we’ve already gone over how that gets mish-mashed from time to time. A new example: It seems that every CE tries to put their “stamp” on the tech page, changing formats and terms. The most recent was an attempt to change “Max Speed” to “Top Speed.” Not only has Max been used for 13 books, but it also implies to me the “maximum possible” versus the “top sustained.” Make sense? Besides, it’s a common usage. There is always the fight over changes in HP, additions, subtractions, even re-deployments of characters and promotions in rank, since they are different from previous style sheets.

Well I can help figure out a few. Going off of clues in the books I think the Nancy Engine is 522 cubic inches or about 8.5 liters. I base that on Ben basing the pistons and cylinders off of salvaged ones from the Wright Cyclones in the PBY. Those dimensions are easy to look up. The prototype uses air-cooled salvaged jugs bolted to a crankcase he made. The production models are air cooled but I bet he kept the dimensions. That means the 6 cylinder models for the MBTs are 784 cubic inches or 12.8 liters. Not sure about the radials. Did he keep the same dimensions for bore and stroke?

Taylor
//Had all that sorted out but left it out of the narrative to avoid distracting “technical dissertations.//
Maybe you could put your technical dissertations in a Tech Appendix after the Specs section. That way it’s there, but doesn’t interfere with the narrative.

Looking at the initial 255 HP 5-cylinder radial, we can go with similar power levels as the first US Wright Whirlwind engines of the early 1920s. They had approximately .28 hp/cu-in. & a modest compression ratio of 5.1:1 due to the low octane fuel of the time (50 octane), much as our heroes do (I assume). This delivered a naturally asperated (non-supercharged) 220 hp from a 788 cu-in. (4.5″ bore x 5.5″ stroke) engine.
To get 255 hp from a 5-cylinder engine with the same fuel quality restrictions & basic tech, will require considerably larger bore & stroke, which is actually an advantage with a less developed tech base. Going with the specific power rating of the Wright engine (I rounded it to .28 hp/cu-in.) the 255 hp engine will need about 910 cu-in. of displacement. They can get near this with either a 6.5″ bore by 5.5″ stroke (912.5 cu-in.) or a 6″ bore by 6.5″ stroke (918.9 cu-in.). Radial engines of the time mostly used the smaller bore & larger stroke combo, which makes sense since they are low rpm engines that maximize torque over horsepower. Larger strokes produce more low end torque than short stroke combos & vice versa. It has to do with side loads, piston speeds, rod to stroke ratios, rpm & other stuff I won’t get into.
Looking at the two row radial & other historical designs going from one to two rows, power increases can be as little as 50% to over 100% depending on better fuel, better cylinder head designs & supercharging, but the basic increase seems to be in the 70-80% power increase range with no other mods to the engine.
The initial 10-cylinder engine produced 325 hp (about a 27% increase) at an assumed double the weight & fuel burn. This made it an engine with very serious issues. The next version increased the power to 365 hp (a 43% increase) better, but still with problems. Taylor says ROB specs should have seen another power boost, but without specifics we can only guess. With a normal engine, doubling it’s displacement would give the 10 cylinder engine about a 420-460 hp rating. The same increase as the first one would net us about 405 hp, getting into viable engine territory.
As far as max speed is concerned the P-1C is probably near it’s aerodynamic limits, drag & airframe wise & even massive power boosts will only net minor max speed increases (3-6 mph or so). The real performance jumps will be in the low & mid speed ranges. Much shorter takeoff runs, faster climb rates, increased maneuverability, ability to carry heavier ordnance (within airframe limits) & with the increased engine efficiency, longer range, endurance & reliability.
Geared supercharging would be the next big thing along with a simple variable pitch propeller & maybe going to three blades on the prop.

Looking at these possible specs, I realize these engines aren’t all that small. The 10 cylinder version will have over 1,800 cubic inches of displacement, which puts it in the same category as the engines on the B-17, the Wright R-1820 Cyclone. They’ll have a smaller diameter, but be longer than the single row R-1820. Granted the Cyclone had better fuel & supercharging, but it started at a modest 600 hp or so & with development wound up at over 1,200 hp. With better fuel, materials, design work & super charging, the 10 cylinder engine family could very well see over 1,000 hp in a few years.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_R-1820_Cyclone

Nice work Lou. See my other post. I was able to derive displacement for the inlines based on book sources. I think your bore and stroke may be off. The assumption I’m running with is the inlines share the bore and stroke of the Wright cyclone because Ben used salvaged pistons and cylinders in their development. It’s a square design with both 5.5inch bore and stroke. Making another assumption, I think its likely the radials use the same bore and stroke. This means tooling for pistons and conrods can be used for both engine families. This would be very attractive to Letts. Ben would also have the cylinders from the salvaged cyclone to base his radial cylinders off of. One less thing to spend R&D time on since it’s a proven design.

With that bore and stroke the 10cyl radial comes out to 1307 cubic inches. At the current 365hp figure that gives us 0.27hp/cubic inch which seems much more reasonable. Also makes it more likely the little P1C could heft such a thing without having huge CG problems.

Your work is good, if you base it on the 365 hp version of the 10 cylinder engines as a starting point.
I based mine starting with the initial 5 cylinder one. Cutting your displacement in half (to get the 5 cylinder displacement), we get 653 cu-in.. Work that with .27 hp/cu-in. & you get 176.44 hp instead of the rated 255 hp. I based my initial assumptions on the 5 cylinder one since the 10 cylinder engines can’t be getting .27 hp/cu-in. if they’re up initially only 27% (325 hp) & then 43% (365 hp) in power compared to the initial design.
Having the in-lines sharing bore & stroke is an excellent idea though. Also, I agree it’s a large engine for a small plane. Maybe they lengthened the fuselage & put in a fuel tank, or radio & batteries to compensate for the added nose weight.
At .27 hp/cu-in. the Nancy engine should be about 555.5 cu-in. & the 6 cylinders around 833 cu-in., slightly larger than a square 5.5″ B x S. A .28 specific power brings them close to your displacement size though.

So in that case the inline probably are 5.5 inch bore and stroke but the radials are likely something else entirely. You’ve provided some good possible setups. I think we need to know more details about the engines. What kind of carbs do they have, whats the valvetrain etc. Sleeve valve of flathead is going to be far less efficient than OHV or OHC. Then again the engines they have to base theirs on are either OHV or OHC. What octane are we really running at? Etc etc.

I just realized I made a huge mistake. The PBY does not use the wright cyclone. It uses the p&w twin wasp. The bore and stroke are correct though. Somehow I got the names flipped around in my head.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that even the early p&w r1340 wasp’s were supercharged. The Union’s 10 cylinder is not to our knowledge. I think the power disparity between the two could easily be explained by a lack of forced induction and low fuel octane assuming the current variant is getting close to 400hp. Its not as good of an engine clearly. So there will be power losses but I think a single speed supercharger not unlike the one on a real 1340 would get it to around 525hp or so. The first wasp was 450hp and they went up to 600hp in the most powerful versions.

Don’t forget that to get to 100 RON or better in the avgas will require Tetra-ethyl-lead, which opens up a can of worms because it can be absorbed through the skin. High octane avgas was chock full of it. I know of several cases of lead poisoning in people handling avgas because they didn’t wear proper PPE. TEL may be beyond what the Allies chemical industry can do at this point, especially their industrial hygiene.

At the moment I’m rereading the series and I’m only on firestorm at the moment. There was recent bit. Maybe in the book before. Where Courtney admitted he had no idea how to do TEL. Seems his expertise is more in extraction of oil than gasoline production. Anyways I thought someone had come up with the idea of blending ethanol in the gas later in the series. Making a sort of moonshine E85. E85 is only part of the way there and has worse fuel density but I know you can get octane comparable to race gas out of it which is pretty close to avgas. The big drawback aside from worse fuel economy is that it tends to eat up some types of fittings so the engine has to be setup for it.

Anyways I would have sworn thats what they settled on to finally get the P-40s running right. In my car tuning experience I know it’s pretty popular with high boost applications because it’s almost as good as 100 octane AKI race gas and much easier to get. Usually you can only get race gas at the track or from airports since avgas is the same thing today.

Just adding a bit more, E85 is higher octane than 100 RON. Its 85 AKI but AKI is an average between RON and MON. MON gives a lower rating for the same fuel. It’s why gas in North America seems like its worse than it is in Europe even though its the same thing.

Very good so far, reflecting a lot of my thinking, either written or implied. And frankly, I can’t remember if some of this stuff WAS written and then cut. I’ve had to be particularly brutal trimming tech stuff, but having written it, I sometimes can’t remember whether it made it in the books or not. And after a couple of books go by, it gets really hard to remember. These things really do take me a whole year to research, write and edit, and after the final edit, I’ve never had the opportunity to go back and read any of the books again. Sometimes I’m actually amazed I’ve managed to keep any continuity going.
As for the P-1C, yes, it is A) longer–I think the pics make this clear, and B) like the Nancy, it has pretty much gone about as far as it can. There have been hints to that effect, and more than hints in the upcoming. That doesn’t mean there won’t still be further modifications, some of which I think you’ll enjoy, but these will probably fall in the “proof of concept in the field” or “let’s see if we can get a LITTLE more out of what we’ve got for a LITTLE longer” categories, more than continued design complacency (or increasingly, constraints)..

It was Mallory I think that came up with the idea of methanol injection to get the octane levels up in the P-40s. They could do that in the radials to boost HP also, but would need higher compression pistons to take full advantage if they ran blended fuel. They’d probably also need some mods to the fuel system, since ethanol corrodes many materials. Those mods, combined with a single stage geared supercharger could easily get to 550-600 HP levels. Then they’d have to worry about materials holding up under the stress, similar to the boiler tube issues. It’s a vicious cycle.
Using methanol as an emergency combat boost is doable also, but would need mods to the ignition timing system during the injection period to take advantage of the temporarily higher octane fuel, as well as a separate injection system & methanol &/or water tank. I used the Cyclone engine as an example above, it being closer to their tech level than the Twin Wasp, as it had lower compression & used lower (87 octane) octane fuel.
The main power boost aside from superchargers at the time was actually water injection. Since water tended to freeze at altitude, they started mixing it with methanol to keep it liquid & found using both increased power even more. Even the early jet engines used water injection to enable running at higher power levels. Overloaded B-52 crews often prayed the water held out long enough for them to get off the ground.

The 10 cylinder is a good sized engine & well worth further development. Given a five or six year development cycle, it could be turning well over 1,000 HP. This is contingent on better fuel, supercharging, better materials & design work of course, but many engines of the era started with problems & modest power ratings & became powerhouses over time. It could power the entire next generation of fighter, bomber & transport aircraft, which may or may not go against the LOT.
That could be the beginning of a new series after the Grik & Dom issues are settled. A couple more odd transfers, what’s up in the Mediterranean, increasing tension & overlapping of the spheres of influence, new players helping what’s left of the old guard, the Lemurians reluctant to get into a new war, etc..

Wouldn’t the League start the war before that 1000hp engine happens? Given what we know (and can speculate) about the fascist “home front,” it’s going to be even harder for them to churn out modern planes. I can’t see them just sitting around eating ratatouille while the Allies catch up to them.

Water injection on turbojets was primarily to keep the exhaust gas temperature within limits to prevent overheating the turbine blades. If you exceed the allowable limits the engine has to be torn down for and inspection and overhaul.

In our world the 109E went into production in 1938. It was the first model with the definitive DB601 engine. In the early Es it was making 1085hp. The latest Hispanos of the same time were making similar power so the best League fighters are likely to be in that realm. Their most common aircraft are going to be less powerful though. One thing we don’t know is how modern the fighters at zanzibar were. If they were the equivalent to Emils then they have Mercedes engines. If they were earlier variants considered disposable they may have had Jumos or older Hispanos 12Ys. Given that they were a match for P-40Es I think they were likely DB powered. IIRC the Italian models use German engines whereas the French opted for homegrown Hispanos.

//Water injection on turbojets was primarily to keep the exhaust gas temperature within limits to prevent overheating the turbine blades.//
Agreed. It was much the same with the piston engines. They could run more aggressive timing & power settings with the water injection cooling the intake charge, the combustion chamber & keeping the pistons from burning.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_(engine)

Guess I misremembered the ethanol bit. Meth injection is a solid and proven way to boost power. The P-40 used it, probably where they got the idea, and so did the 109. The Germans were really fond of MW50 a 50/50 water Meth mix that gave a big boost to power as long as the tank lasted. It’s still used today on high boost tuner cars.

Maybe someone can come up with ethanol blended fuel. They have the ability to make E85. It’s not hard. Someone just has to think of it. Maybe Courtney could think of it. Or a cat engineer has a happy accident. Methanol and ethanol sound similar after all. Sounds like a fun plot point, maybe one of Ben’s cat crew chiefs overhear him and Dixon talking about methanol and mishears it. They mix some moonshine grade seep into gas and it works. Courtney was drunkenly blathering on about the therapeutic properties of ethanol and they put two and two together.

Don’t forget the major problem with methanol where it is very hard on rubber tubing and could could cause problems without sufficient maintenance.
I sometimes hate my cellphone. Text is so small that I callot see the mistakes until I get on a PC

The main difference between a common HE shell and an AP shell is that the AP shell is forged steel and the common is cast steel. Typically the forged casing is thicker and the bursting charge smaller than the cast common shell casing. The bursting charge of a 3inch AP shell is pretty small, so they may wish to consider using AP shot instead.

Probably not much use as anti-tank weapon. This gun is short-barreled, and while the shell itself are rather heavy, the penetration power is limited. Not a good weapon to face French tanks even with proper AP shells.

If they developed a forged AP round for it, it would make an OK anti-tank weapon for what they should be facing (Mid to late 1930s European tanks). Most of these were armed with 20-47mm guns & fairly thin armor. The French Char B1 was tougher with 40mm of armor & the Char B1 bis had 60mm & with production starting in 1937 may be what they will face. The 3″/23 with an armor piercing round should still be competitive at standard tank engagement ranges though. Regarding the short 23 caliber barrel, most of the prewar era tanks had short barrels (23-40 caliber depending on weapon & nation) with the medium velocities they delivered. This was to make them more able to maneuver & train their barrels in confined spaces (heavy brush, trees, confined city streets etc.) & were still able to handle most armor of the time.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tank_main_guns

Another thing to consider, while the French tanks have impressive hard stats for the time they were very difficult to fight. Most had two man crews with the TV doing the job of three men. He was the commander, gunner and loader. One of the numerous reasons French tanks were so ineffective in 1940 is by the time a TC had spotted the enemy, loaded the gun, aimed and then fired another unseen panzer had flanked him and shot him in the ass. The other issues were poor doctrine, deployment, poor readiness and comms.

The panzer 3 while being inferior on paper is a much more tactically efficient vehicle.

This doesn’t mean they aren’t a threat though. When the other guy has tanks, even if they aren’t great, and you don’t then your gonna have a bad day.

I still stand by the 3inch being a solid choice for a multipurpose gun at this time. It’s light AA artillery, would make a decent field gun and a stop gap AT gun as well.

The longer barrel would be the easiest way to modestly (100-200fps) increase the muzzle velocity, range & penetration. Changing the cartridge would entail changing the chamber for starters & the increased pressure from the larger powder charge would need to be tested to see if the current breach & barrel would withstand the round firing. Too large of an increase on a low pressure gun like that would be very dangerous. I’d just go with a 30 caliber barrel, redo the ballistics tables & develop an armor piercing round for it.

There are some other things that can be done with or without lengthening the barrel. The formulation or the grain structure of the propellant can be changed to increase the mean effective pressure while the projectile is in the barrel. Some other things as well like a larger or longer primer to give better ignition. Also as the MV is increased they may want to consider a muzzle brake as the recoil will be increased. The muzzle brake will also reduce obscuration of the target from propellant smoke. (smokeless powder is not smoke free powder) This was an issue with a number of tank guns in WWII and was generally fixed with a muzzle brake.

I doubt the destroyermen are familiar with the concept but a shaped charge would work extremely well here without having to modify the gun at all. The Germans developed such a shell for the short barreled panzer 4 and I think it reliably gave around 80mm of armor penetration. If they want to develop something like a Piat or Bazooka shaped charges are required as the muzzle velocity from anti tank rockets is far too slow to use effective kinetic penetrators and for straight HE rounds to defeat tanks you need a sizeable charge, much bigger than 75 or 80mm. Shaped charges on the other hand don’t rely on velocity at all which is why the Piat, which is essentially a nerf gun on steroids was able to kill tanks at all.

Maybe Silva could come up with the idea. He’s a weapons genius and he could have heard about them at some point. The concept wasn’t unknown at the time, just not widely deployed until later in the war.

Shaped charges work best if they are not rotating when they fire. A fin stabilized shaped charge works best. The copper liner is turned into plasma and the pressure causes the armor become plastic and flow. It doesn’t actually burn its way through the armor. Spinning the plasma causes the jet to diffuse. They could instead try a hyper velocity armor piercing shot. This had a hard sub-caliber penetrator in a non-discarding sabot, which as lighter than the full bore shot and thus achieved greater velocity. At closer ranges it gave greatly increased penetration.

Hyper velocity armor piercing shot was used by the US in WWII. It was the only way certain US tank guns could penetrate the armor on German tanks. The tankers lover it and their complaint was that there wasn’t enough of it.

Aren’t they already matching the explosive compounds from the original 4“/50 shells? That should be sufficient to make a heat round work. As for smoothbore versus rifled that’s very true that heat-fs from a smoothbore is more effective but it still works in a rifled gun. IIRC the main reason tanks switched to smoothbore was the combined advantages for heat and sabot as well as modern fcs allowed it to be practical. Sabot by the way is also an old idea and was used in the muzzle loading era. It was reintroduced during the cold war because era and nera reduced the effectiveness of heat-fs. Barrel erosion is supposed to be high with sabot which contributed to the move to smoothbore but rifled guns like the L7 did successfully use sabot.

A typical modern shaped charge, with a metal liner on the charge cavity, can penetrate armor steel to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge (charge diameters, CD), though greater depths of 10 CD and above[1][2] have been achieved. Contrary to a widespread misconception (possibly resulting from the acronym HEAT) the shaped charge does not depend in any way on heating or melting for its effectiveness; that is, the jet from a shaped charge does not melt its way through armor, as its effect is purely kinetic in nature.[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge

First of all, shaped charges are NOT plasma. Plasma is a ionized gas, fourth state of matter AFTER liquid and gas. It’s a gas, in which electrons are shredded from atoms.

Shaped charges have nothing common with plasma. They do not make a phase transitions at all. What they do, is that they compressed metal by creating tremendous pressure wave, until the metal basically start to flow – but still remaining solid. The shaped charge jet is a SOLID mass of metal, not melted into any kind of liquid. It’s just squeezed so hard, that it is forced to bulge out as thin, hypersonic jet of solid metal.

The armor did not “became plastic and flow” either. There is simply no time for that. The jet hit armor on the velocities faster than speed of sound in armor, and on such velocities objects react more like fluids.

I will concede that the jet in a shaped charge does not meet some definitions of Plasma. Poor choice of words on my part. However the jet in a shaped charge is not a solid mass of metal, you are conflating all shaped charges with a explosively formed penetrator, which uses a shaped charge to generate “solid” penetrator. The pressure of the jet, in a typical HEAT round causes the metal of the armor to flow, by undergoing plastic deformation. Actually some of the metallic liner undergoes phase transitions as it goes from solid to vapor. Typically the jet is a mixture of gas from the explosive and vapor from the metal of the liner and solid particles since not all of the liner is vaporized. Spinning the jet increases its diameter reducing its pressure on a square area basis thus reducing its ability to cause the armor to flow. And yes hydrodynamic theory can be used to describe both liquid and plastic flow depending of the viscosity of the material.

“I will concede that the jet in a shaped charge does not meet some definitions of Plasma.”

It does not meet ANY definitions of plasma) It is not even gas, far less ionized gas)

“The pressure of the jet, in a typical HEAT round causes the metal of the armor to flow, by undergoing plastic deformation. ”

But it is plastic deformation – NOT the phase transition. Just because metal under extreme conditions started to demonstrate some traits of liquid does not mean it is actually a liquid. It’s still solid.

“Actually some of the metallic liner undergoes phase transitions as it goes from solid to vapor. ”

Well, unless they get a boatload of physicists escaping from a believeable non-Destroyerman timeline, looks like science may be slowing down. Need somebody like James B Conant, abig science bigwig during WW2, to sail his yacht into a storm and wind up with the Nussies…

Have to agree with Alexey here. HEAT does not make plasma. It’s liquid, or really plasticized copper. The part about it being kinetic is entirely right thiugh. If shaped charges worked by melting through armor then they could be easily countered by armor with low thermal conductivity.

Anyways, back to how it relates to our heroes. If we want AT rocket launchers like Justin proposes we have to have shaped charges full stop. The only way they will be effective against armor is with shaped charges. If that can’t be done then they will have to rely on good old kinetic penetrators. For infantry that means AT rifles. These will be effective against early Panzer 3s and 4s, the Italian tanks which are across the board thin skinned and the light French tanks. If they have H35s and B1s, forget about it. Those need higher caliber guns.

Designing a good AT cannon will take time. For the gun, sights, carriage, ammo etc we are talking over year if not more. To give you an idea of time frames, the Panzer 3 was designed for a 50mm gun from the start but they didn’t actually get them until 1941. That’s three years with a far more developed arms industry.

Right now the Union has two candidates for AT weapons. The 3 inch and 4 inch. The 3 inch is lightweight and should be easy to make. It’s also versatile. But it’s low velocity which means it would have a hard time combating thicker skinned targets. The 4 inch is very very powerful and should be able to frontally penetrate any tank the League has. But it is very heavy. For comparison the Rheinmetall 120, used in the Abrams and Leopard 2 is similar caliber and length and it weighs less than half. Part of that is down to technology but part is also down to different design requirements. Naval guns are heavier built than tank guns. Doesn’t mean you can’t use them on land though. The Soviets tried this, look up the SU-100Y. It has a massive box casemate to hold its naval rifle.

You could lengthen the barrel on the 3 inch. That would help somewhat but barrel length isn’t everything. Consider the long 75 on the later Panzer 4s. There are actually two models of gun. One is an L43, the other is L48. The extra length didn’t improve performance all that much. It did some but not by a huge amount. To take advantage of a longer barrel you need a longer case. That means a redesign of the breech block and new ammunition.

I think short term they should use the 3inch as is. At the same time work on developing a long barrel version with a new high power cartridge for it. In time it will be ready for deployment. Assuming they have proper foresight in their tank designs they should make a turret ring large enough to accept the new larger gun in the same way the Pz3/4 and Sherman could take gun upgrades. Then it’s a simple matter of swapping the gun and the tank is a lot more lethal.

Tiny correction, Matt – I suggested a PIAT, a low-angle mortar somewhat like an AT grenade launcher. Alexey observed a few years ago that bazookas and recoilless weapons aren’t going to be an option given current knowledge (or lack thereof).

Sorry, I count rockets, recoiless and spigot mortars together. Even though they work differently their tactical use is the same. A bazooka, rpg and piat all do the same thing, hit a tank with a heat projectile. They just get it there in different ways. If they can’t do a recoilles rifle then I think a rocket propelled grenade would be better. The big advantage of a piat is is their stealth but that includes a tradeoff in short range and difficulty loading.

While they haven’t had much limelight the allies do have rockets. They have used them for signaling before. I don’t see why congreve rockets couldn’t use shaped charges, I’d make them smaller but using percussion caps or the newer electric ignitors would work to set one off. They are wildly inaccurate but that I think has more to do with the grick building them. The allies could refine and improve the basic design.

The shaped charge efficiency are directly linked with the charge diameter. So, the rocket engine must not only be powerful enough to carry meaningful warhead, but also to fight the drag, created by oversized warhead. Lets just say, that it is NOT for Congreive rocket. You at very least need a nozzle.

Very good discussion. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while–been crazy busy–but I have been reading and enjoying these. It strikes me that the power of a shaped charge, if not the armor piercing potential of projectiles incorporating them, is as old as muzzleloading artillery. The very charge that propels the projectile itself is, of course, “shaped.” From there, however, you start to wander in confusing places regarding what they could or could not know/make so I’ll just do a short primer on penetrating/battering/range characteristic of weapons described in the story already, omitting technical terms like ballistic coefficients, cross-sectional densities, and the like. (I always liked Elmer Keith’s “killing power” formula better anyway). This is all unnecessary for most who post here, but possibly useful to visitors to this forum and the “world” it references.

In the roundshot era, bigger was always better since the weight of the projectile rocketed up much faster than the diameter. I always use 6pdr (@ 3.67 bore vs 12 pdr (@ 4.62 bore) stats as examples, though the difference between a .50 cal round ball (@180 grns) vs a .60 cal round ball (@330 grns) is probably more illustrative to small arms shooters. Those are also, if you recall, the original calibers of the first Allied smoothbores and rifle muskets, and eventually the Allin-Silva. Starting at similar velocities (which DOES take about twice the charge to throw twice the weight, resulting in corresponding recoil, the much heavier ball is bucking less wind for the weight and shoots much flatter and hits much harder with higher retained velocity. Almost none of the initial hypersonic velocity is useful at long range, however, since the sound barrier is a great equalizer when it comes to spheres: It beats them all down subsonic very quickly. Once subsonic, however, the heavier projectile bucking less wind for the weight will keep its velocity longer, travelling farther (flatter) as gravity still exerts itself equally.
With conical projectiles came the understanding that weight could be added without increasing diameter at all, and it was eventually understood that you could REDUCE the diameter while increasing the weight and improving penetration characteristics. A prime example in U.S service was the replacement of the .50-70 (a fine round, and no mistake) with the .45-70. This had a measurable effect on effective range, (same or greater weight, bucking less wind), and the .45-70 would penetrate deeper as well, less because of velocity, but because of the longer, narrower distribution of weight behind the point of impact. Take a 5 pound iron rod and a 5 pound iron block and drop them both from the same height. Which will sink deeper in the ground? In a board? Retained velocity was still an issue at long range because bullets still had flat or spherical noses and that pesky sound barrier still didn’t like them, beating on them mercilessly until they slowed down below it. Pointed bullets, (like the .30-06 mentioned in the tale) slide through the sound barrier much more easily, almost like cutting it with a knife, so their loss of velocity is more gradual, more linear and predictable, making them far superior for long range work. Why then have the Allies stuck with big, slow moving bullets so long after they should’ve been able to field lighter, faster ones? There are many answers.
First, they’ve been in an existential war, starting with next to nothing, and just fielding thousands and thousands of single-shot breechloaders has taken time, and a lot of industrial capacity. Most of their actions have been at relatively close range and the .50-80 Allin-Silva is still better than anything they’ve faced. Keeping them in action has allowed the Alliance to focus new industrial capacity and workforce on other projects–like perfecting MGs. Why don’t they re-line existing rifles to shoot more modern ammo? The capacity to make the liners is certainly now in place. The answer to that is, while the “tapdoor” Allin-Silva could probably handle the .30-40 Krag cartridge–with the same bore diameter and 1-10″ twist as a .30-06–it certainly couldn’t handle the same .30-06 as an ’03 Springfield. And while the .30-40 is also a fine cartridge, its 220 grn bullet weighs only half as much as a .50-80. It’s faster, but not ENOUGH faster to justify the effort. Especially when speed does not always equal penetration. It might if the bullet was solid copper or bronze, but then it would only poke a small hole in the enemy. There has been no Geneva Convention on this world and Grik with small holes do not stop fighting. What stops Grik are bullets that smash bones and make large, deep holes–better if the bullet exits and those holes come in pairs. The same is true for large, dangerous animals. So until they develop bullets like manufacturers ore ONLY NOW, in the last couple of decades, really beginning to focus on, that will penetrate deep while making terrific wounds, they’re probably better off sticking to .50-80, on that world. At least against the Grik. Against that argument, would .30-06 be of any use? Of course. Especially since, even pushing a heavier than normal bullet, let’s say a 220, it would still be going enough faster for long range work as well as adding a compensating level of velocity boosted energy to the projectile to make grievous wounds. It still might overperform and under-penetrate on large, thick-skinned “boogers,” however, so for every squad of riflemen with .30-06s, it might always be a good idea to have at least one marksman along, armed with a .50-80–or something bigger, say between that and Silva’s Doom Stomper.

While big and slow makes a lot of sense for small arms in this world the requirements do change a lot when you are talking about armored vehicles. A tank will shrug off a big cannon ball. The most it will achieve is to ring the crew’s bell. Armor penetration means velocity with conventional penetrators. AT guns are going to need to be high velocity and fire armor piercing rounds.

Research into shaped charges actually goes back pretty far but it looks like they weren’t really combat ready until the second world war. If anyone knows about them it would be nice, I just don’t think they will.

About hollow points. I don’t think its fair to say they are new or have only become useful recently. The British used them first in the late 19th century and they were so effective they were banned in the Hague convention. I think the lack of development is directly because they were banned from military use and they have only recently been picked up for police and self defense use. Its not a limitation of technology, simply a lack of active development. The original “dum dums” were very nasty and effective. I think they would make even the big bore rounds the Union currently uses even more effective than they are now. As long as body armor penetration isn’t a concern a hollow point will pretty much always be the best choice for stopping power.

Umm . . . Actually, it’s a word play figure of speech, not a technical description of the reaction of a modern shaped charge. The charge at the breech of an artillery piece is shaped to fit the breech relatively tightly, confined by the metal around it, directing it’s force in a specific direction: Down the barrel behind the projectile. Sheesh! Just goofing around. (Notice the quotes and the big word disclaimer). The earlier discussion on penetration, re AP. etc., got me thinking a basic primer in ballistics, re the series, might put things back in perspective for casual visitors.

Sheesh again. //About hollow points. I don’t think its fair to say they are new or have only become useful recently//

Never even used the word hollow point, and didn’t mean them anyway. They are absolutely the last thing you want for penetration at high velocity. They will always overperform and leave gory surface wounds but won’t penetrate at high velocity, unless they’ve got a lot of solid bullet behind them. What I meant was that, essentially ever since the introduction of soft-point jacketed bullets, there has been very little change. aside from jacket thickness to control expansion, and then the polymer tips to aid it. All are very velocity sensitive and none worked well in everything. Probably the best, most reliable (and most innovative) bullet for penetration and expansion for 50 years was the Nosler Partition. Surprisingly, only recently has a lot of serious effort and R&D gone back into making bullets that reliably perform (expand AND penetrate well) at a wide range of velocities. That’s all I was saying. And ironically, as far as I can tell, the gold standard still remains trying to come up with bullets in a variety of calibers that will equal–at long range and short–the penetration and tissue damage a .45-70- will achieve at ITS OPTIMUM RANGE. (Figured I better stress that).

Rockets again; Taylor, I can just feel the needles going into the Steve voodoo doll. I won’t add anything except the efficiency of a shaped charge warhead depends on it accurately hitting the small target. Used as a bombardment rocket like a Congreve, it’s wasted. But Congreves, Katuyshas or Grockets are cheap, and dumping hundreds of them into an area is justified.

@Steve, a congreve HEAT rocket would be a hilarious waste. What I’m thinking is that it can be inspiration. There’s no reason why a black powder rocket cant propel a shaped charge to its target. It’s crude yes, but it can be made accurate enough.

Mass rocket artillery in the vein of katyushas are very effective. But as artillery. I’m all for that but it doesn’t answer the anti armor question.

As for how to get tanks there, well with all of those transports the tanks came on of course. But honestly a direct confrontation with the league on land is u likely to happen any time soon. Everyone is simply too far from one another but a cold war of sorts could form and a hot one is probably bound to happen eventually. So the union will need to develop modern mechanized forces with combined arms doctrine. Part of that includes organic anti armor capability on the infantry level.

I don’t have to imagine it, the British essentially did this with the Piat. They had mixed success and eventually adopted the bazooka.

Rifle grenades never worked well. The problem is you can’t fire the rifle from the shoulder when using them so it’s essentially an ersatz one man mortar with short range, and none of the training a mortar crew would have. Also they are so small a penetrating shot might not have much effect. There’s a chance it doesn’t hit anything important. Rockets are great if they can do one. At guns are most realistic at this point though. Something 50 and 75mm in caliber should be more than adequate and also double as a decent direct fire infantry support gun.

The panzerfaust was a recoilless gun technically. Add a sustainer rocket to the warhead and you get an Rpg-7. The union can probably make a recoilless gun pretty easily. But again, the hard part will be the HEAT warhead. Anything that’s low velocity needs a shaped charge to beat armor.

Hm. Considering the Alliance aircraft engines – what about motorjets? I.e. jet engines, where the air compression is achieved by motor-powered compressor (which motor could also turn the propeller for additional thrust)?

Granted, they aren’t especially effective, but they are MUCH simpler to build than turbojets, since they did not require gas turbines. And the general principles are simple & obvious enough.

Indeed but I don’t think 1000hp engines are that far out of reach. They already have good examples to learn from, the P-40’s Allison V12, the PBY’s Wright radials and supposedly DB601s from the Machi-Messerschmits. The big limit for them is proper high octane fuel which they have been getting better at and a good supercharger. While the mechanical fuel injection of the DB601 is a marvel, it’s stupid complicated. They are better off doing a pressurized carb which is what I believe the Wright and Allison use. I’ve already done some napkin figures and a low pressure supercharger will increase performance a healthy margin at altitude. But the biggest difference those WW2 engines have over earlier ones are displacement and compression ratio. Displacement requires refining your manufacturing to make engines that size that don’t fly apart and compression ratio requires high octane fuel, especially with forced induction. What’s a V1710 use? 93-95 octane? I think the Merlin required more, it was higher strung and generally the radials less as their aircooling allowed for the same weight with a bigger displacement and less compression to achieve the same power.

definitely the motor-jet is a viable high performance option. You can get 4 to 10 times the output thrust/horsepower that the driving engine provides. The first attempt at this tech was during WWI and when they put the working model on a modern fighter (for the day) it tore the engine off the aircraft so they essentially gave up on it instead of strengthening the air-frame.

So-called “Jake’s Jeep”, designed by Eastman Jacob. It was a pretty logical attempt to reduce the risks with the turbojet engine development, by eliminating one of high-risk technology (a gas turbine), so the USAAF would have SOME jet-powered aircraft soon if turbojet development would hit some unforeseen problems. It was not completed – the USAAF turbojet program was quite successful and fast enough – but the main point is, that motorjets are “low-risk” jet propulsion tech, that it within Alliance technical capabilities.

An engine driven compressor? Hmm, sounds suspiciously like a supercharger & would make for a more powerful engine & allow high altitude operations. Thoughts to ponder.

Maybe just supercharge the engine & run the exhaust into a large duct taking cooling air from the oil cooler & maybe another intake duct, exhaust it with a tail pipe & use it as a ramjet once the plane is flying fast enough to sustain the burn. They could use it when a sustained burst of speed is needed in combat. Have a door to close the separate intake to cut drag when not in operation.

“Maybe just supercharge the engine & run the exhaust into a large duct taking cooling air from the oil cooler & maybe another intake duct, exhaust it with a tail pipe & use it as a ramjet once the plane is flying fast enough to sustain the burn. They could use it when a sustained burst of speed is needed in combat. Have a door to close the separate intake to cut drag when not in operation.”

This is called Meredith effect, but without injecting the fuel it is not exactly ramJET. And it’s thrust is not very impressive. Meredith effect was put to good use by USAAF and RN to compensate for the extensive drag that radiator produced, but it wasn’t simple.

The motorjet is the JET engine, where the air compression is provided by the piston motor, that rotates the compressor.

I don’t think at this point there is anyone in the world who would have a solid concept of a jet engine bouncing around in their heads. Mallory is the most qualified aero engineer the Union has and for the most part jet research in 1941 was very classified. He wouldn’t have a reason to know about what the Germans and British were up to. Turbines and ramjets had been experimented with before that but these were fringe projects with little publicity. He may know about one but he would have to be a huge engine nerd to have done so. It’s within his capability to design one down the road but first he would have to be hit with inspiration. Various reaction engines, turbines, rockets, ram jets etc weren’t seriously considered until the limits of piston engines were reached anyways. So far Ben has stuck to what he knows works and innovated where necessary. The concept of a jet is straight forward but the hardest part is even conceiving of it to begin with.

The next big thing for union aircraft is going to be forced induction. They have examples of several super and turbo charger designs and implementing such an upgrade to the radial is their best bang for buck right now.

It is possible and likely given enough time that either Ben or one of his trained engineers will be inspired by either walker’s axial steam turbines or a turbos centrifugal compressor and come up with a jet but that isn’t happening tomorrow.

There were piston engines that sent their exhaust into a turbine to generate power added to the crankshaft, not a supercharger. They were called turbo-compound engines and were used on some aircraft in the 1950’s. Had a lot mechanical reliability problems with them. There were also designs that used a nozzle on the exhaust stack to generate a small amount of thrust. Another example of the Meredith effect.

I think you’re talking about ejector stacks. From what I’ve been reading, they were used more for engine cooling issues in tight cowlings on radial engines. If they were well designed, they would also provide some thrust.https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qpheFOecjzs/UpdlsQwNkII/AAAAAAAAB5Q/prEnDB9nC5I/s1600/Augmentor.jpg
Another version of ejector stack simply had stub exhausts curved into the airstream. These provided an increase in thrust, but added no cooling capacity to the engine. You can see them in pictures of many in-line engine aircraft of WW2. Others just exhausted straight to the side & provided no thrust.

“Turbines and ramjets had been experimented with before that
but these were fringe projects with little publicity. ”

Matt, I’m talking about motor-jet. Which did not require gas turbines or anything high-tech. Gas turbines are clearly outside Alliance capabilities; that’s for sure. They were pretty tricky to build on 1940s tech. So, TURBOjets are out of question.

But motorjets – where the air is compressed by external power (like a piston motor, driving the supercharger) – are must less complicated. They are within Alliance capabilities, albeit not immediate.

Alexey, I’m not disagreeing whether they are within their technical capability. I just think that those forms of propulsion are completely foreign to any of the destroyermen so it wouldn’t occur to them. In 1941 as an American fighter pilot you would have to be a serious engine nerd to know about the active work going on jet and rocket propulsion. Yes motorjets, pulsejets and ramjets are technically feasible. You can even make a working pulse jet in your garage. But Ben would have to know about their existence to even get started on them. Barring that, then they would have to be reinvented the old fashioned way. Which takes time. And given Ben is the only qualified aero engineer they have, its going to take awhile. Ben would need to build up a class of trained aircraft and engine engineers and have the time and resources to perform research and experimentation. That’s not happening in a war where he has an airforce to run. Any improvements now will be related to things he already knows about. He will be focusing on what he knows works. That means ever more powerful engines to be mated to ever more advanced airframes with the end goal of reaching parity with late 30’s-early 40’s combat aircraft. Once that has been achieved, they will look to new research.

Recently obtained some good materials about Italian high-tech weaponry of World War 2, and started to dig in… Seriously. Those guys were cool.

By 1940 they already have surface-to-air missile prototype tested, and radio-controlled torpedo in good state of development. And several other interesting designs, including radio-controlled bomber-turned-flying bomb. Basically, in 1940-1942, they were far ahead of EVERYBODY ELSE in this areas.

So, I actually wonder – what may League’s Italian component have? Maybe not radars, but considering that CES was clearly much more militaristic than in our world… They would almost certainly have radio-controlled torpedoes; the program was running since early 1930s, delayed only due to lack of funds.

Don’t forget a nuclear reactor program, the Campini N.1, and the Semoventes.
I doubt they’d have any of these, though. For a “first-rate” power, Italian industry lagged behind everybody else’s, and I don’t think even a Duce Balbo scenario could turn that around.

That said, what they should have is the world’s largest sub fleet. Not to mention a maximum air range of 4,000 km (e.g. Bahrain raid); if they adhere to Douhet’s “terror bombing” doctrine, the Republic’s civvies are in for a world of hurt.

Yep. The SM.79 trimotors were pretty badass even in 1943, despite their outdated appearance. In Destroyermen’s world, they would be nearly unstoppable: their speed and defensive armament made them virtually invulnerable for Alliance planes. Even P-40 would not find SM.79 an easy prey – more likely deadly adversary.

I agree the SM.79 is a generally good bomber but I don’t think it would be invulnerable to P-40s. Experience in WW2 and conflicts directly before showed bombers without fighter escort are very vulnerable. Even sticking an arsenal of guns on it doesn’t help that much as we found with the B-17. The league should be able to provide their bombers with escort though and we saw the P-40E is an even match with the Machi-Messerschmits. That will make them invulnerable. The P-40s are basically spent at this point so the Union really needs to get on developing organic modern air power. There’s the whole aluminum problem but we’ve already discussed viable alternatives there. For this to work they also need a homegrown 1000hp engine, radial or in line doesn’t matter but they are going to need it, with a supercharger for fighters and bombers that are competitive with the league.

Invulnerable – no. Deadly adversary – yes. SM.79 could reach 460 km/h max speed, have a 7500 meters service ceiling, and was quite good armed for early World War 2.

Anyway,

“The P-40s are basically spent at this point ”

so the question is moot – nothing in Alliance arsenal could stop the “damned hunchback”.

“For this to work they also need a homegrown 1000hp engine, radial or in line doesn’t matter but they are going to need it, with a supercharger for fighters and bombers that are competitive with the league.”

I still couldn’t see how the Alliance would manage to make such engine in foreseeable future. Frankly, they probably should put their efforts in jet & rocket propulsion. At least it is simpler and do not require such high-grade manufacturing.

I doubt they would consider something like jet or rocket propulsion on their own, since I doubt they would have any knowledge of something like an Me 163 or 262. The manned Grik suicide rockets that are in the works might give them an idea that it is possible, but I doubt it would occur to them naturally.

I think the Machi-Messerschmits would have the same issues as the bf109’s during the battle of Britain, short legs. Not an awful lot of combat time over target when flying bomber escort. IIRC they had about 10 minutes over London at combat power. Did the axis develop good drop tank technology?

“I think the Machi-Messerschmits would have the same issues as the bf109’s during the battle of Britain, short legs. Not an awful lot of combat time over target when flying bomber escort. IIRC they had about 10 minutes over London at combat power. Did the axis develop good drop tank technology?”

Problem is, that League’s SM.79 did not need fighter escort to go against Alliance targets. They weren’t even supposed to have fighter escorts – pre-war Italian doctrine (like many other nations too) assumed that speed & armament of modern bombers would made them invulnerable to fighter attacks (this was pre-radar era, let’s not forget, and most of fighters were still with open cabin & fixed wheels).

The speed & altitude of SM.79 made her almost out of reach for majority of Alliance fighter. And even if it would be possible at all for P-1 to intercept her, her defensive armament is pretty heavy.

how many SM.79’s will the League have? how many can they afford to loose? how many have they lost, either through accident or lack of spares/maintenance. IIRC the convoy was a strike force to take Egypt from the Brits, they would probably have spares for a limited engagement. They would be expecting to be able to get replacements/spares relatively quickly across the med.

Considering the average size of Italian air force units – probably about a hundred. And at least some CANT Z.1007 Alcione – which, despite being wooden-structure, was considered one of the best bombers on Mediterranean.

Do we know for sure they have SM.79’s? Those are large land based aircraft. While it’s possible they had some knocked down on transports that seems really odd especially given the short hop from Italy to North Africa. That is easily within the range of land based aircraft to just fly to captured airfields. Crating and transporting large aircraft makes sense in terms of the US Army fighting in the pacific but it doesn’t make that much sense for the Mediterranean. Did the Afrika corps do anything like that in our world?

They probably have at least a squadron’s worth. Separate squadrons would be flying at some distance unless there was a air threat at the time. Of course, considering what Taylor has implied & what has transpired already, the transfer squall must have covered a large area of the Mediterranean Sea.
Most of a multi national invasion fleet (100-300 square miles), aircraft, subs, support vessels, aircraft (transports & fighters so far), as opposed to the usual smaller transfers of one or more localized ships, planes or subs. The Brits of the CES world caught a major break. Unless there was a British fleet going to intercept them & got transferred also. A thought to ponder.

I doubt the RN was wiped out, unless there were considerably weaker in that world than ours. The RN had unquestionably the most powerful surface fleet in Europe. However their forces in the Mediterranean weren’t capable of matching a combined French and Italian fleet without reinforcement from home fleet.

My guess is that the invasion was one of the opening acts of that war and the RN were unable to counter the sneak attack in time due to having to defend the channel against the French.

Do the Allies still have only the one oil well? It makes a real tempting target for the Leauge or the Dominion. And logistically how are they going to supply a world wide war effort from one refinery. And why is their only petroleum engineer running around the jungle with a machine gun?

Ha! Welcome, Scot! No, not only are there lots of oil wells around Baalkpan now, the whole of Tarakan Island has become a fuel producing facility. Others exists elsewhere, though haven’t been stressed. The Impies are getting oil out of California for their transition to oil-fired boilers, and it’s been established that the Nussies burn oil in their ships–understandable with their reserves. What hasn’t been discussed sufficiently is the Repub fuel source. I hope to get to that soon.

Cool. The crude in that region is about as good as it gets.
Have they replicated the Houdry process?
This was critical in WW2 to improve the octane rating and make more available aviation fuel.
Also chemists are few and far between( likely cause they were not on ships but in labs/production facilities)
Not likely to encounter a Straka in your lab. Would be helpful if your engineer helped to recreate the
Houdry/Tetraethyllead process. Really need better fuel to take on leauge. Plus aluminum, plus duralalum
Plus manganese, magnesium, etc,etc. A boatload of chemists on holiday to Trinidad could get
Swept into this universe.

No chemist’s sadly. Maybe the empire or NUS has some but they wouldn’t be familiar with TEL. That would take a lot of research to figure out. Aluminum is another tough nut to crack and one we’ve discussed a lot here. The only process that could possibly be known to the characters is the Hall-heroult process. It requires cryolite. The largest deposit is in Greenland. Very far away. There are deposits elsewhere, such as in Colorado but aluminum is a tricky and energy intensive undertaking, far harder than steel. Currently the only aluminum available is from wrecked aircraft from our world, P-40s the PBY etc.

Hmm. I agree, the Impies and Nussies will have some chemists, but neither will be making TEL any time soon. Frankly, neither will the Union, though Ben Mallory is familiar with it. His hero Jimmy Doolittle was involved in its testing and development. Most likely Allied source, in the shortest time, might well be the Republic. What are THEY using for gasoline in their Cantets?
Established aluminum “resources” off the top of my head: A small number of P-40s in Santy Cat’s hold that could not be made airworthy and were scrapped/parted out. A probably larger number wrecked in training (mostly landing, I imagine) accidents and scrapped/ parted out. Several combat wrecks that were salvaged or recovered. The PBY, of course, as well as the wreckage of a Japanese Betty and Val dive bomber. An unknown amount of scrap recovered from Macchi/Mess wrecks. (Remember, much of the aluminum in those that crashed and burned would’ve been consumed by the flames). Anybody think of any more? All together, it’s not really enough to melt down and cast a lot of major engine components for mass production, but actually a fair amount for a lot of little things.

Not enough to make all metal stressed skin planes but if smelter into ingots you have a few tons worth altogether. Maybe enough to make the wingspars and main structural bits for a small comapotie design. Not unlike the spitfire. It’s famously wooden but that’s really only the skin and non load bearing parts. There was a fair bit of alumimum but only where it was really needed. You could potentially do the same by using steel sparingly and the rest as wood or canvas. I reckon that’s where Ben takes his designs next.

Have to go with Alexey on this one. Maybe tube or extruded beam steel spars & stringers for aircraft framing. Wing ribs could be thin sheets reinforcing wood cores. Thin gauge sheet for the leading edges & control surfaces & the rest being plywood would work quite well for anything under 500 mph. Propeller blades could be either wood wrapped in thin sheet steel or with just steel leading edges.

That’s exactly what I’m proposing guys. Maybe someday aluminum could be done. Some kind of agreement with the NUS, since they seem to be the closest to major cryolite deposits. But in the meantime composite construction using steel and wood will have to do.

I’m imagining a tube steel structural frame with plywood skin. They can already make steel tube well enough. Plywood needs to be figured out but shouldn’t be difficult. Pair that with a supercharged version of the 10cyl radial and we have the next generation Union fighter. Do the same with a twin or four engine setup and we have bombers.

Welcome to the jungle Scot!
Given their location & technology derived from SMS Amerika, they’re probably currently running coal fired double or triple expansion steam engines. With the alliance made with the Union, they may start to shift to oil fired engines. They would have to import oil for the ships though. Since they have plenty of coal their land based machinery will probably remain coal fired for the foreseeable future.
Our version of South Africa does have very small amounts of oil, but no useable oil fields with their current WW1 era tech, maybe their world is different & does have accessible oil. Only Taylor knows.
If by petroleum engineer, you’re referring to Courtney, I think he’s supposed to be some sort of ambassador, but likes to go out & look at stuff & on one seems to be able to say “NO! Sit! Stay! Good Courtney!” The way he gets into things, he’s liable to be the next one to cash in his chips.

While Courtney is the only person who can be considered an expert on petroleum, and one of the few “real” engineers alongside Ben and Spanky his involvement isn’t as necessary on the oil side anymore. His largest contributions there were with his charts of deposits known to Shell which turned out to be accurate enough as well as his knowledge on refinement techniques. At this point his charts for deposits have no doubt been copied and he and the Mice have no doubt trained enough personnel on how to extract, refine and store oil that he doesn’t need to be as involved. His main roles now are ambassador, boffin at large and as the Captain’s primary non military trained council. At this point he is serving his ambassador duties by working with the republic. In that regard he’s done a lot of good work and the same goes for the other people’s they’ve met like the empire. People just like Courtney and either because or in spite of his eccentricities he has become an effective statesman. Of course most good statesmen and intellectuals are eccentric so it’s probably a requirement.

Assuming a U.S. ship gets transported from our timeline and it has a load of M1 Garands, how hard would it be to make copies that use a 20 round box mag, like a BAR? It seems like this would be easier to produce than the 8 rd en bloc clip they used.

There actually was such a Garand during that period, the T20. No problems with it, Japan just quit before production could start. Most of its features ended up in the M14 years later.

Adhering to the KISS principle however, command’s probably going to give the M1s to the Raiders and order M903s instead. Mass production of gas-operated rifles would be a bit much for the Union or Republic right now.

I may be remembering this wrong but I believe initially the garand was intended to use box magazine but it was swapped in favor of the enbloc clip for cost reasons. Box mags were well understood by the time the gun was developed so there is no reason it couldn’t be done. They actually pre-date enbloc and stripper clips by a few years.

She has plenty of HP since she’s running 8 boilers instead of the 6 required by the three turbines. I rated her at 39K SHP (1.5 times Walker HP), but with the extra boilers, think she’s actually turning 45K SHP or more. One thing I think they do need are basic splinter/small arms shields on the 4″/50s, since they have a tendency to get into musket range of the enemy.

If you look at the Wickes/Clemson specs, they say about 26K SHP total, which is about 13K per turbine. If the Gray was running 70K+ SHP, she’d be planning & running a rooster tail at over 40 knots. It would be a sight to behold!

The Omaha class were 3K tons heavier & had 14K more HP to do 35 knots. With 76K SHP I’d think the Gray would be pushing 40 knots pretty hard.
Then there’s the issue of fitting six turbines (3 Walker plants) into the Gray. They’d also need paired reduction gearing for two turbines per shaft, or if not, figure out how to run six screws out the back. They’d need some bodacious propeller guards. :)And if they’re running three Walker plants, the boiler count goes up to 12. With all that in a 4K ton hull, she’d have very short range.

//When I say Walker plant I’m talking about two boilers and one turbine. 3 plants equal 6 boilers and 3 turbines in total.//
Sorry, I was thinking of a Walker plant as the whole shebang (2 turbines & 4 boilers). I’m good at miscommunication.

I think that rating is for total power, not per shaft. Either way, if two boilers per turbine is enough to run them at full power then I doubt the extra two will make much difference output wise. They could be there for reliability and redundancy sake. Walker and Mahan have had their boilers shot up enough that they may want extras in the new design. Not to mention the QC issues with components means they could be down one at a bad time. Maybe its just designing for reliability?

I brought the HP issue up as a possible error in Devil’s Due, but Taylor never weighed in on it one way or the other. Going by the Wickes/Clemson specs, each turbine should be delivering about 13K SHP. If Taylor is doubling that, they must be running serious super heat & very high pressures with the new boilers, which would also explain the boiler tube failures.

The boiler tube failures were from too much sulfur and phosphorus in the steel that makes the tubes brittle. This causes cracking when the tube ends are rolled into the sheets. The micro-cracks spread as the tube is heated and cooled causing contraction and expansion. This causes the crack to spread down the tube suddenly. It called zipper cracking.

I figured it had to do with manufacturing defects rather than superheat, but without Taylor revising the turbine specs to each putting out 13K SHP or so, folks are having to go with the Devil’s Due specs on page 37.

Beautiful. I think we’re spoiled, though, because we have the benefit of looking back at WW2, whereas Reddy and company don’t have the advantage of armies of boffins.

Saw the TB again and thought, just the thing for coastal work defending choke points. And a small enough scale to quickly train up Impies and Nussies for independent operations.

Just a thought, would U-112 be able to make underwater supply runs through the Pass before Gravois gets there? I’m thinking he’s going to cut a deal with Mayta; the general gets the army by stopping the impalings, and Gravois gets the fleet and the seat of power. Getting things like fire control, M2’s and a few Derby’s they can start copying would be a huge force multiplier. Not to mention supply runs the other way, from Alexaandra. Both would be fairly free of LOT interference. Cargo subs worked in the Phillipines.

A bunch of the clipers being built will do a better and faster job because the league has no airpower in the west and no way to build up one. The range of anything they provide the doms will not be sufficient to harm a clipper from anywhere in dom held territory.

Was considering from the Pacific side of the Pass to the NUS. Like maybe aviation fuel as well for Nancys. If she’s got enough shells for her heavy armament, take on some Cat spotters and go after the Dom fleet at pre-dawn or twilight hours. Any attrition at all would help, even of LOT assets. I reread the last ROB chapters and I didnt get the sense they were going to be given a pass on engaging (non-German) LOT assets

No, we were actually shooting at Ft. Hood Memorial Day weekend. On the other hand, we got some WAY better footage (5000 frames per second) at the Yuma Proving Grounds some years back while engaged to doing a documentary for the History Channel. Unfortunately, the footage belonged to the Army and I have never been able to get anyone to take responsibility for letting me post it. Like the footage you directed us to, it was live fire, but it also showed (in addition to much more graphic shockwaves) that a ball of plasma actually extends almost unmeasurably briefly backward as far as the axles. Remember, in action, the #1 and #2 men are standing there when the gun is fired.

The Chauchat wasn’t perfect as it was the first true automatic rifle (and used as such) as opposed to a light machine gun. The automatic rifle along with rifle grenades was the key to overcoming emplaced machine guns during the Great War. The Lewis Gun was a better weapon, albeit heavier, but it was used as a light machine gun, in a separate section rather than an automatic rifle at the squad level. The Chauchat was available in significant numbers and, in war, good enough now beats perfection in the future.

The BAR was an even better solution for the automatic rifle role than the Lewis gun which was firmly an LMG (albeit a very good one. Having said that the BAR isn’t great either, its heavy, expensive, has a small magazine and overheats too easy. There were some good modifications of it but the US Army never adopted any of them.

IMO a better solution than HMGs, LMGs, auto rifles, battle rifles etc is to have an Infantry rifle and a GPMG like the MG34. While not excellent in any particular role it is good enough for all roles and the simplified logistics are a huge boon. Logistics win wars. Add in an SMG (blitzer) and sidearm (1911) for niche roles to round everything out and that’s all you really need for your small arms. Four guns. Anything else is either special use or artillery.

I doubt it. It’s a good idea, but as smart as the Marines are, they’ve been doctrine-ized on BARs at squad-level and crew-served MGs in reserve;* they’re probably never going to even imagine a universal MG until the MG34s spray their trench. Ditto the OTL Panzer Korps and sloped armour.

Until then, they might try converting Springfields to LMGs, like how the Canadians made the Huot out of the Ross. Not the same, but unlike the Browning Auto, it’d have interchangeable parts and a (seemingly) more heat-resistant barrel.

*A doctrine that the modern USMC is reverting to with the M27 IAR. No strong opinions either way… although suppressing fire’s going to be real hard with just STANAGs.

In WWII the USMC squad was 13 men. A squad leader and three 4 man fire teams. Generally each fire team had one BAR, one Thompson SMG and two M1 rifles. The US Army squad was generally 12 men, the squad leader carried a Thompson, the Automatic rifle man a BAR and the rest M1’s. The Marines considered each fire team a maneuver element. The Army used the BAR as the squad base of fire usually with the automatic rifleman and one to 3 others for rear and flank security and the extra ammo that they carried. The others were used as the maneuver element. The Marine squad had more flexibility, but the Army squad was more capable of sustained fire power from the BAR. The Germans based their squad around the MG34 or MG42 machine gun as the base of fire with the riflemen as the maneuver element. This is similar to the Army set up. A machine gun has an enormous appetite for ammunition and thus requires ammo carriers who also provide flank and rear security for the MG. One an MG opens up it usually becomes the draws everybody’s fire. The usual way to attack an MG is from the flank or rear, hence the need for security. The Marines used the BAR more like a modern assault rifle rather than a squad base of fire. Like and M1 with a much larger magazine capacity. Originally automatic rifles like the Chauchat and the BAR were intended to be used primarily in the semi-auto mode, with the full auto mode reserved for final stages of the attack or defense. They also had a second man who served as loader and a third who carried extra ammo and provided security. This was the Great War pattern. Beginning in the 1920’s the automatic rifle was integrated into the squad with all the squad members carrying extra loaded mags for the AR. This was in contrast with the AR as a separate 3 man element. This was in keeping with the general flattening of the organization as the infantry section was abolished, with the squad directly subordinate to the platoon instead of having the squad as a part of the section which was part of the platoon. So keep in mind that the weaponry has to be integrated with the organizational structure.

@Justin, it’s mostly wishful thinking on my part. What is far more likely to happen is that they will developed based on what they know. And what they know are US Marine infantry doctrine circa 1941 and US Marine and Navy small arms from the same time. It’s much easier to reverse engineer a gun you have than it is to develop one from scratch. So they are going to mass produce BARs and Springfields. While not optimal, they will get the job done. Its easy to say they’d be better off with an assault rifle and gpmg but doctrine and available designs dictates what they will work with. The Union can only afford time spent on novel engineering where there isn’t already an established pattern, that’s why the new ships are based on Walker and the Nancy’s use Wright designed engines. I think we will see more original designs post war, if there ever is one. At some point they will need to standardize and modernize so much of what they have now will be surplused into the new growing economy to make room for equipment in a military that can afford to carefully develop its tools and weapons.

Then we agree. Like I said, the protagonists can only apply unconventional thinking if they realize the conventions exist. And in the case of MGs, they don’t.

Still, even with just rifles and auto rifles, they’ve got to reverse-engineer and set up production lines for both. Tthere’s a good chance that some intelligent Cat or “happy little accident” along the pipeline might lead to (for example) a quick-change barrel or higher capacity mag; the French reworked the BAR into the FM 24, and that was in service as recently as 2006.

Just wondering if anyone has made a post since the 12th? I’ve been noticing some website issues. Of course, if there is a problem, I probably won’t see your post! I’ll know it didn’t come, though, and I can get repairs started.

Hi Lou. Well yours came through, so I guess folks are just busy. On the other hand, what prompted my concern was that I have not received anything on the direct contact feature in months. I figured folks just preferred posting on my facebook or the Association page. On a whim, I decided to test it and send something to myself. It never came. The possibility that people have been trying to contact me for a long time and I never saw it, probably making them think I just blew them off is NOT ok.

Still here, and I assume everyone can see my posts. I think the conversations just have an ebb and flow. We end when we’ve said what needs to be said and wait until someone brings something else up. I prefer this site to facebook, I deleted my account some time ago and the reddit community for the series is mostly dead. So here I am.

Reddit is, as I understand it, a discussion board website where people discuss things. A reddit community is a group of people on reddit who discuss a certain thing. There’s probably a reddit community for just about everything. I think. I don’t really go on it much myself as I tend to shy away from most forms of social media.

@Taylor, reddit is a website (www.reddit.com) where users can make their own sub forums known as sub reddits. They can cover just about any topic, news, hobbies, politics etc and the communities self moderate for the most part. Some have very large userbases and others are very small. The destroyermen sub reddit is http://www.reddit.com/r/destroyermen. Its a small community right now, only about 90 people have subscribed.

The opening in the magazine was so the loader could tell when when the magazine was about empty so he could have another one ready to change out. The Chauchat is historically important as it’s the ancestor of all of today’s selective fire military weapons including the assault rifle. The M16 and AK are concept descendants of it. It was the first truly single man portable and operable selective fire weapon. In concept, an assault rifle is a refined Chauchat.

I wouldn’t go that far. The chauchat is an LMG, maybe an automatic rifle. Assault rifles aren’t just defined by mechanical function but also by doctrine.

The witness holes in the mags are understandable from a design perspective but completely ignore the realities of trench warfare. Which makes them a failure. The shortcomings don’t end there though. The long recoil action is poorly suited to a shoulder fired weapon. It’s difficult to fire one accurately because the thunk of the action combined with the recoil is too disruptive. The recoil forces your sight picture up and the weight of the bolt and oprod forces it down. Too much reciprocating mass. That’s not an indictment on the designers, it was WW1 and arms tech had a long way to go but the chauchat is primitive.

The purpose of an assault rifle is to lay down suppressive fire to cover the maneuver elements of a squad, in a weapon that can easily be carried and operated by one man. That’s exactly what the Chauchat was designed to do. In effect, issuing assault rifles to everyone in the squad means everyone has his own Chauchat and can fulfill the automatic rifleman function. I never claimed that the Chauchat was perfect. It had a lot of bugs it was also designed and produced in a hurry during a major war. Saying the Chauchat is a bad weapon is like say the Wright flyer Model A was a bad airplane because it couldn’t fly at Mach 2. Technology gets refined with time and use. The experience with the Chauchat led to the BAR M1918, the Bren gun and others. Realizing the effectiveness of selective fire weapons in the infantry squad led to the development of semi-automatics like the M1 and that led to the development of the StG. In a modern infantry squad equipped with Stg’s, usually one or more men is/are designated as the automatic rifleman to supply suppressive fire to cover the maneuver elements just as if he had a Chauchat. The selective fire squad base of fire is integral to the fire and maneuver doctrine used by infantry today. You could take an infantryman from 1917 or 1918 and drop him in a modern infantry squad and he would adapt quickly and the basic doctrine hasn’t changed. An infantryman from 1914 would see a whole different, unfamiliar squad.

Right, but that’s an automatic rifle, not an assault rifle. Unlike the Sturmgewehr or Kalashnikov, the Chauchat and BAR did not require an entirely new carbine round, nor were they designed or used to replace the battle rifle; they were always intended as portable squad-level MGs.

The designers of the StG and the AK were looking to put the firepower of the automatic rifle into the hands of every infantryman and REDUCE the weight. In order to do this they had to reduce the power of the cartridge to reduce the level of recoil to keep the weapon manageable in full auto fire. The reason the Chauchat and the BAR were so heavy was to keep the recoil of their full power cartridges manageable. By reducing the power of the cartridge to control recoil they also had to accept a reduction in effective range to 400m (440y). The US Army attempted to do this in the 20’s and 30’s by adopting the .276 Pederson cartridge, which was slightly more powerful that the 7.92×33 and had an effective range of 600 yards. The reason they were willing to accept a reduced effective range and power is that they realized they didn’t have to worry about killing horses anymore and the indirect fire and long range fire modes had been taken over by machine guns and mortars. They made a trade off in effective range and killing power, that they thought they didn’t need anymore, to get the firepower of a Chauchat into a lighter package. The concept of the squad automatic rifle evolved into the assault rifle over a period of two decades. I’ve stated before that if the M1 rifle had been chambered in .276, made selective fire and given a detachable box magazine we’d still be using it.

The BAR may have been directly replaced by the M14 and M16, but its role was replaced by the M60, M249 and M29 – the guy who holds it is literally the “automatic rifleman.”

Again, there’s a difference between auto rifles & assault rifles. One fulfills the “full-auto heavy suppressing fire” role, the other is lighter and more general-purpose; I wouldn’t want to clear a house with a Chauchat.

You missing the point. It’s not that the Chauchat is an assault rifle, but that it started the chain of development that led to the assault rifle. The M60 and the M249 are not automatic rifles, they are light machine guns. Yes, the line between an LMG and an automatic rifle is fuzzy. The Bren is a good example of that fuzziness. The M15, which was the Automatic rifle version of the M14, didn’t work because it was too light for the recoil of the 7.62×51 cartridge to be controllable in automatic fire. The Marine Corps M27 is on the fuzzy edge between an assault rifle and an automatic rifle.

Nobody’s doubting its innovative status, but it was the ancestor of the ancestor of the assault rifle; it wasn’t one itself, even in theory, any more than Australopithecus was human.

That’s the point. It’d take a few more generations to jump from “let’s make a hip-firing MG that a squad can walk toward a trench with” to “let’s make an automatic carbine for everybody in the squad.”
World war doctrine still called for one BAR in a fire team, and the other two being rifle teams (https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-915734e676a91b974982701ca85ad7a1); the concept of each team being capable of both fire and manoeuvre didn’t catch on until later.

With Muriname now in the allies camp, you now have a naval aircraft designer (radials) and an army aircorps desiner (inline). Maybe Mallory & Muriname can bounce ideas off of each other to improve the aircraft of the Alliance. Hopefully before they run into the League.

I wonder whether Muriname will be ‘all in’ or just go through the motions? He seems to be in it for himself and his comfort maybe more than anything else. More so than the German Sub Crew he needs eyes on him for awhile.

If he can help build a better flying machine then all just might be forgiven. Of not, exile to somewhere out of the way might be an answer.

Hopefully, they can talk the technical aspects of their craft, figure who has better metallurgy,heat treating and such, and blend the best aspects of both camps. Muriname, probably, has more real-world education and Mallory has more booklearning, technical, theoretical education. IIRC, the 9 cylinder radials in Muriname’s aircraft were rated 380hp, the 10 cylinder stacked radials in the fleashooters were 375? Were the jap engines more efficient? Better carburetion? Larger displacement? Supercharged? Is there any possibility of duralumin or other aluminum alloy being created?

It’s come up many times before but duralium or any form of aluminum is going to be very difficult and a huge technological barrier for not just he union but everyone. Bauxite is easy enough to find but the only process to refine aluminum that could be known to them is the hall-heroult process. This process requires cryolite an aluminum salt. The only major deposit was in Greenland. It is possible that it can be found elsewhere on this world but unlikely.

Other than the odd Grik BB in the lakes on the Zambezi torpedo and dive bombers are worthless in the African theater, so how to get the few they have in the Gulf of Mexico where they will be a vast improvement over Nancys in the upcoming battle with the League. Murinamie’s best cortibution would be to help spur the Union’s multi engine carrier aircraft production IMHO.

I agree. Right now the Union rely on the Nancy’s and the larger seaplanes for bombing and attack roles. The Nancy’s are slow and limited in payload. They can’t carry a useful torpedo. The seaplanes are more cumbersome to use tactically. Muriname’s attackers would be a great basis for a proper carrier attack aircraft. The ones they have are too few and valuable for a combat airwing but a great start for production and they can be used as trainers. Multi engined carrier ops is also a new challenge.

On the new construct destroyers, do the copies of Walker have the extended rudder of Walker? Will they have the same agility as Walker? Are the guys at Baalkpan working on an improved model, or replacement already? Since the Gray had issues with the rudder, are they going to modify the design before making more copies or send blueprints to New Britain or RRP? Will they send copies to their allies, or have them create their own ships? Is the Grand Alliance setting up a design bureau capable of heavy ship design?

A unified multinational BuShips would be nice, but lack of reliable communication – and more pressing concerns such as a two-front war – means that swapping notes will likely have to wait until Sofesshk and/or Nuevo Grenada fall and they can connect all three factions with radios and a Clipper service. Captured Grik zepps might work too.

There’s a brief mention of the Imperials making Walker-sized hulls and possibly larger ones. And the Republic’s currently building ironclad cruiser/battleships called the Imperator-class.

The Baalkpan shipyards only have walker to work with. The Mahan was to badly damaged that she is not good for a model. The shipyards will copy as close to exact as they can so yes the copy’s will have the extended rudder

Too bad for the French and Germans, that is. Any ship an 8″ was designed to shoot, she’ll be able to shoot the sub right back – and subs aren’t supposed to be shot at in the first place. Same reason why the British battlecruisers didn’t work out too well.

And don’t forget the poor Argonaut. (1928-1943, sunk in action with all hands). Designed as a minelayer, she was also built and considered to be a “cruiser”, or “strategic scout.” At 381 ft and displacing over 4,000 tons, she was the biggest US sub until the nukie boats came along. She also carried two 6″-53 guns, the biggest ever put on a US sub.
She was a terrible boat, though she probably would’ve been OK as a minelayer–which she never did–and was better than any other US boat for carrying commandos (Marines for the Makin Island raid), but she was entirely unfit for a war patrol (which she was performing when sunk.) To big, slow, and unmaneuverable. Many of the same complaints against Surcouf, and (now :)) U-112.

Actually? It’s called a “style sheet.” This is a confusing document they (sometimes) update with each book, or more properly, I update, in which they keep lists of everything from my corrections on the proper usage of terms, to the spelling of Lemurian names, to Silva’s way of saying certain words, to the way I don’t put “the” in front of a ship’s name, to technical specs listed in previous books. It is a VERY long document. Unfortunately, if I change anything, they assume it is a mistake and arbitrarily substitute the change with what is established in the style sheet. Sometimes they don’t use the right one. Sometimes they decide to change my changes to the style sheet back to what a previous style sheet said. Anyway, I do my best to catch things like that, but . . . there’s an awful lot to catch by now.

Actually . . . nope, the newest variants have had a bit of a boost, but I’m REALLY going to have to make sure they don’t edit that out. But yeah, as of ROB. You’ll note that certain quarters are growing a little dissatisfied with the venerable Nancys?

Oooh! More power! Even so the speed increases will probably be minimal although the takeoff & climb performance will be better. The P-1C airframe is probably at or very near it’s absolute aerodynamic limits on a draggy design speed wise.

Yeah, caught that. For what was hinted at, it’ll need airframe mods to handle the changes. I imagine the good folks in Baalkpan have been working on it though. Some of the guys here & on Deviant Art have had the same idea in the past. We readers still have to recognize, though it’s been a decade for us, not even three years have passed for our heroes. Change & modernization take time & the more modern you get, the longer the R&D period takes.

I have a question about the Union’s 32 and 50 pound naval guns: What are they? I know they are bronze, smoothbore shell guns, but I am not familiar with any such weapons in real life. Are they basically like bronze dahlgren or paixhans guns? Or are they scaled up M1841 six pounders or 12 pounder Napoleons?
Another question: How did the destroyermen know how to make things like 12 pounder napoleons or the mountain howitzers? I don’t recall anything about them being intimately familiar with the design of civil war era artillery, but I might be wrong.

All guns since the very first have optimized material. They don’t have wedding bands or traditional “cannon mouth” swellings at the nuzzle. These are unnecessary. Imagine the basic shape of 3″ Rifles. This because they incorporate an efficient strength to taper ratio (sometimes called the Mordechai taper) and Napoleons utilized it, though they did keep a minimal muzzle swell. Confederate “Napoleons” did not. In any event, not only was Captain Reddy familiar with historical artillery to some degree, others would be as well. Just as important, they’d be familiar with their own naval rifles which utilize variations on those earlier tapers themselves. Gunner’s mates would probably have a basic understanding of pressures, tapers, etc. Garret would have. Probably Campeti too.

During WW 2 gasoline was rationed not to save gasoline of which there was plenty but rubber of which the had little and lost large areas of production to the Japanese. So is part of the reason the Union has not developed truck transport the lack of rubber?

Considering there may be tankers among the survivors of the Misuki Maru as the 192nd Tank Battalion was in the Philippines and they were equipped with the M3 Stuart tank I think a copy of said M3 Stuart may be next tank in the pipe line. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/192nd_Tank_Battalion

Here is an interesting quote from a British member of the Destroyermen Fan Association, //Steven James you do not need Gatling gun/minigun weapons when you have perfeclty good, EXTREMELY reliable water cooled mahcine guns!
if you are tlaking about weapons to slaughter normal infantry which does include Griks

US and British watercooled guns could fire quite literally, for days without jamming, and to be frank, butcher any poor sods in front of them in droves
those bullets will go through several people and tear limbs off with plain .303 and .30-06 ammo cause they are firing 600 rounds per minute

and from several guns on those tanks, so folk would often get hit several times, bullets would tumble, fragments would fly, ergo, messy
(see descriptions of the poor sods of WW1 who did those loony suicidal charges across No man’s Land literally seeing friend’s arms and legs being shot off beside them, ick)

water cooled guns are too heavy though for infantry to lug around easily however, real PIA
great for vehicles, who dont’ worry on weight, but they do need armoured covers to protect the water jackets from bullets and splinters

.50 cal guns also came in water cooled versions, and those on a tank would be *really* nasty
over heating is real problem with normal .50 cal so you do have to use short bursts, not so with water cooled and the heavy water jacket keeps vibration down, too.
Much more effective weapon than a 6 pounder gun! seriously.
“Grik Scythe”?

Problem with miniguns especially larger calibres, is they need a very powerful electric current for power
so for a tank for the Allies, that might be the problem, where as, a basic tank using water cooled machine guns would have no engineering challenges and use existing weapons//

Using an M3 would kill a few other birds with one stone. I don’t currently have my tank book on hand, but the Stuart would be a good choice. From what I recall, the Stuart was reliable and well-liked by its crews. The Alliance could get a fast cavalry tank out of the deal. It might also be relatively easy to produce, though I’m not certain about that. Its deployment would ensure they’d have something to throw at any tanks the League might have, as it was designed with the Battle of France in mind.

Long story short, Seventies Brazil decided to modernize their existing M5s by added sloped armour, another 80hp and a 90mm turret, and could theoretically square against a T-54. That might do the trick.

You can still use it like a tank though. It was also just a light tank that they slapped a howitzer on, so it could still be used like a tank. And if you show a picture of an M8 to just about anyone and ask them what it is, they’ll say it’s a tank.

Wasn’t that the one you were suggesting? I mean no offense, I am just confused.
The Stuart isn’t the best tank, obviously. However, it’s something they might have some experts on. It at least provides something to throw into the breach that might have a chance of taking on League tanks considering certain facts mentioned at the end of River of Bones that I do not wish to spoil.

They don’t necessarily need to copy the stuart rivet for rivet. They can base their tank off of it, copying what they can and substituting their own stuff for things they can make. I also remember reading somewhere that the vertical volute suspension system had problems with reliability, and in real life they eventually switched back to the horizontal volute system. They could also use a christie style system with larger road wheels that are independently…sprung? Not sure what the exact term would be, but the point is that they don’t need to use vertical volute suspension if they can’t copy it. I do think that for the time being tankettes might be the way to go though, since they’d be far easier to produce en masse. Maybe put a water cooled .50 in one, and you’ve got something to butcher infantry and take on light armor if needed, although it’d be better to have a dedicated anti-tank weapon for that job. Ooh. You could have versions with hull mounted .50’s as general purpose vehicles, and then versions with hull mounted 25mm’s for use against armor. Something like a universal carrier in design. That’d be pretty neat.

There are several different suspension options they could go with. Each having pros and cons. For example the issue with Christie suspension was primarily that it took up a lot of room.

I think they are probably a ways from something as well developed as a WW2 light tank or even an interwar model like a BT. A lot of these things seem obvious to us but the devil is in the details. Yeah a Christie would be nice but can anyone here actually give me plans detailed enough to work off of without checking books or the internet? This stuff takes development time. Hopefully there were some tankers included in those POWs they rescued who will have some good ideas. Beyond that, the main obvious improvement for them to make is to switch from sponsons to a turret. Thats obvious for even non tankers and they have enough examples of turret rings and the gear mechanism to make that work. The next thing is power. Proper suspension ain’t all that important when your top speed is 4mph. If they can get the speed up to 10 or more then it becomes more important. A proper tank cannon is also needed. I think the 3 incher can fill that role for now. Man how they keep ignoring that useful little gun.

Good. In point of fact, there is an episode in the upcoming Pass of Fire in which a principal character actually rides a Union tank–consider it an A-1 version–and makes a few observations about improvements and deficiencies.

You could do worse than to copy the suspension and drive on an FT17. I’ve examined one up close. It would be fairly simple to construct and more importantly, simple to maintain. Not for high speed though.

@William. I agree, something loosely patterned on the FT-17 seems like the best idea. It’s cheaper to build, more mobile, easier to transport, and more effective. They also had a reputation for being reliable and simple machines to maintain compared to other tanks.

I think two versions, one with a browning in the turret, and the other with the 3incher, or a scaled down version would work best. The “Female” version can be a mobile machinegun nest and the cannon armed one would be great for cracking the new defenses with Grik have no doubt devised.

Better would be a proper tank gun. We’ve discussed the differences between an artillery gun, naval gun and tank gun before. The point is, that takes time to develop and gear up production. Right now its best to fight with what they have, not dream about what they want.

An FT style 2 man tank with a 3incher in a turret thats a bit fatter would work well against the Grik. Make it proof against small arms and shrapnel. The only thing they would have to fear is a direct hit from artillery or a rocket. They would easily be half the size of the rhomboid types they have now so you can bring twice as many. And manufacture more for the same time and resources. Once The Grik are beat then thoughts can go to the tank they want to go up against a possible conflict with the League.

For new production the AA would probably be better on a truck. When/if new better tanks come out you could convert FTs to armored AA vehicles. But right now tanks are a more pressing matter than mobile AA so I think priority should go to them.

I think the Nancy Engine should work. It’s a similar size to the engine in the real FT and quite a bit more powerful. Nancy’s are also close to the end of their life so as production is ramped down for airframes the existing capacity for engines can be redirected to trucks and tanks. Biggest issue is that the gypsy is air-cooled but air-cooled trucks and tanks have been done.

//Biggest issue is that the gypsy is air-cooled but air-cooled trucks and tanks have been done.//
While the Gypsy engine is was cooled, the engine the Nancy’s have, while a Gypsy derivative, is actually water cooled. It’s got plenty of power for the light tank chassis they can field now. If they want a bigger tank, they could use the 6 cylinder MTB engine, or the air cooled radials.

It is? I must have missed that somehow. That’s great. I don’t think the 6cyl is needed. The FT17 had 39hp for its 6 tons. I don’t have the Nancy’s specs in front of me but it’s what? 80hp or so. That’s more than enough. The tank won’t be fast but it will be mobile and maybe a bit less lethargic than the real deal. IIRC the rhomboid mk1s they made are either powered by Nancy engines or the I6 PT boat derivatives. Those things are probably close in weight to the British ones so, pushing 30 tons! Very inefficient.

Well, like matt said, the tank wouldn’t be setting any speed records, but it would be better than what they’ve currently got. And 12 mph isn’t that bad. It isn’t great, for sure, but it isn’t too horrible either. And they can always upgrade to the 6 cylinder MTB engine if they need too.

IIRC the 4 cylinder makes 150HP & the 6 makes 225HP, so plenty of HP. They’re probably either geared down or a single speed transmission right now. Good traction, but slow, although on a nice flat surface, they could probably get moving faster. With no real suspension, they’d take a beating inside the tank at any speed cross country & also shake the rivets out of the thing. Very embarrassing when it falls apart.

Justin, something to keep in mind is that mobility is not the same as raw speed. It’s the ability to traverse terrain, especially when rough or damaged. In order of mobility for infantry you have good old fashioned foot infantry, then motorized infantry, mechanized infantry and finally air assault be it paratroopers or hellos. Speed is related but isn’t worth much if you get stuck.

150hp in an FT style tank will not make it fast. But it will make it more mobile. It’s ability to cross steep grades and soft terrain will be improved by the extra torque and power. This is going to be very important against the Grik where road infrastructure is going to be at best stone paving, and only in the city. Everything else is likely dirt which will become mud real quick.

Problem there is that neither Renault nor Hotchkiss tanks were much good for mobility either; even mildly uneven terrain (let alone ditches or hills) proved difficult. Unless it’s a “slow but steady” vehicle like the Churchill, a bad top speed usually means an even worse average speed.

Lou has since pointed out that the Nancys actually use 150hp engines, not 80hp, so that’s good. Provided there’s a better gearbox and suspension to go with it, the Union’s (tentatively-named) A-2 should be close to an AMC 35 and actually somewhat competitive in a modern war.

The way I see it, the tracks, suspension and gearbox are going to be the hardest parts to work out. Mind I never said they would have great mobility. Just better haha.

The 3inch is a solid gun and the Nancy motor should work well here. At this point it’s well understood and mature in development. I’d like to keep size and armor close to the FT17 to keep weight down. For two reasons, 1: it’s good enough fighting the Grik and 2: that 6 ton weight will be much easier on the drive train than the 14 tons of the AMC. As for a follow on design the AMC doesn’t look bad though. It’s a straightforward logical improvement.

Being that the two most important voices in tank development are going to be Alden and Letts though I doubt we would see something like an AMC. None of the crew saw blitzkrieg first hand and Alden is going to be most familiar with pre-war US tank doctrine. That emphasized speed and mobility. They wanted tanks to work like cavalry. That only changed after reports came from Europe about the nature of the war. The Sherman entered service in ’42 but I don’t think Alden had time to get up to speed on modern armor tactics. Long term I reckon he’d want an M2 or M3 Stuart. Any word he can get from the Phillipines survivors would reinforce that notion because the Stuart was more than a match for the tanks the Japanese had. Alden may have his own ideas about tank doctrine but we haven’t heard it yet and I think any changes he comes up with would come from experience he gains using them. At the start of the war pretty much everyone but the Germans had a hard time figuring out how to use tanks right. The good news is since the Grik don’t have any, WW1 tactics will be effective for now. You only need blitzkrieg when fighting another army with combined arms.

Key advantage of halftracks is that you can train people on trucks, and they can drive those as well as halftracks as the controls are about the same. Thus, less specialization required in comparison with tracked vehicle crews.

I only suggested half-tracks because they can transport men or supplies, pull artillery, mount artillery, and do a lot of different things. It’s going to be a LONG time before the LOT gets their act in gear to mount an invasion (which in any case would come down from Egypt to secure the oil fields and split the Union by positioning a LOT base in Somaliland, and use superior air power to attack the Union). However, tanks are a long way and an unneccesary distraction now. My guess is that the LOT wants to seize the Carribean oil fields and the Pass of Fire.

I’m repeating myself, but what the RRP needs is a 3/4 Dodge weapons carrier sized truck. Bigger than a jeep, it can pull a Derby 75 and ammo, supplies, quad MG mounts. Use what your can build a lot of, and that includes giving the RRP PB-5D’s for Coastal Command and plans for P-1’s.

The ting I enjoy most about this series is that it’s relatively realistic; ok, yes, a certain amount of fantasy is needed, but come on, even the Germans couldn’t build a lot of super-weapons, and were defeated in the end by mass production of less-well-regarded machines.

IIRC, they didn’t handle mud or other loose surfaces too well, the front wheels were not driven. I remember reading one of the biggest complaint the Germans had on the eastern front, was not enough tracked vehicles.

Trouble with halftracks is supply and repair. You need more parts to service a half track than a regular truck or a tracked vehicle due to the need to have a supply of wheels and tires for the truck portion, as well as tracks and roadwheels for the tracked portion.

If/once the alliance runs into the league, they’re going to need anti tank weapons capable of taking out Panzer III/IV class tanks. a small relatively light canon like the old 3″/23 AA gun off Walker would probably be a good start. The problems I see; no ap round, low velocity (1650 fps vs 2050 fps for the 75mm M2 or 2600 fps for the 76mm M1 canons in the Sherman.) Would stretching the barrel to 30 or even 40 calibers give any velocity increase without modifying the cartridge? Is the breach assembly strong enough to take a heavier propellant charge? If it is, can the artillery guys develop a shorter recoil assembly to fit inside a turret or sponson? If not, can a prime mover be made for a towed gun? A land war against the league will have to be planned for. At least the alliance has a source of indirect fire artillery from the LRP.

They don’t need a 3″/23 to kill something like an early panzer 3/4. Early panzer 3’s had a whopping 15mm of frontal armor–the 25mm type 96’s ought to be plenty. Heck, a .50 cal ought to be enough. The things to worry about are S-35’s and B1 Bis’s–french tanks. The germans make up only a small portion of the league. The majority of the tanks present will likely be french, with a smaller proportion maybe being italian since I think france was a bigger tank builder leading up to ww2. In anycase, they were certainly better tank designers than the italians, aside from the whole single man turret thing, so the alliance can probably expect things like R-35’s, H-35’s, those panhard armored cars with the 25mm anti-tank guns, and similar french vehicles, with some italian tankettes mixed in. That’s pretty much the consensus we’ve come to in the past, right? Also, the RRP’s 75mm field guns might make relatively good anti-tank guns, since they’re based on the french 75, which worked pretty well against even midwar designs despite its age, unless I’m mistaken on that count. I imagine the black powder propellant the republic uses means it won’t have the same kind of muzzle velocity, but it’s already in production and had the kinks worked out, so I say just give it some solid shot and toss those rounds at tanks.

Agreed, given how the world of the league developed I think the French are going to have the kion’s share of tanks. Hotchkiss and Renault 35’s shouldn’t be too scary, they have relatively thin armor. but the SOMUA 35 and Char B1’s will be a serious threat. Their biggest weakness is lack of mobility and for French designs across the board, tiny turrets. But the Union really doesn’t have anything that can take those out. The 75’s might be able to but they would need a proper AP round and good direct fire sights. They currently lack both things. Going off of the real 75, we have a muzzle velocity of 1600fps which is not enough for an antitank gun. If the Union wants to combat tanks they need something more akin to the 37mm in the Stuart. That, with APC ammo can penetrate the S35 and Char B1 at close range ~500 yards. Of course a proper 3inch (75mm) anti tank gun would be even better and capable of also firing a useful HE round too.

The french 75 saw some good service in the anti-tank role when mounted on M3 halftracks, but I digress. I agree with needing a proper tank gun. Maybe if they can salvage the 47mm guns off of that league destroyer they sank in Devil’s Due, those could be a good starting point. As for taking out S-35’s and B1’s, I’d say put a type 96 in the nose of one of the twin engine aircraft(DPM1’s? I forget the name) the union just got from muriname and use those as tank-busters. The 25mm cannons ought to be able to penetrate their top armor.

Matt: Problem is that they don’t have 37s – it’s 12.7, 25, then straight to 75.Technically the Modele 1897 can pen a Tiger (http://catainium.blogspot.com/2016/06/75-mm-canon-de-75-modele-1897.html), and it did in OTL North Africa, but that’s assuming WWII AP rounds that the Allies don’t have. So yeah, the early war doctrine against heavies is probably going to be “run away and call airstrikes” until they develop some.

General: RoB briefly mentions R&D on a redesigned Type 96. Perhaps the Allies will end up with a Crusader AA MkII in the light tank role? Two 25 mike-mikes in a closed turret should prove a nightmare to League infantry and slow flyers as much as light armour.

Not as easy against mediums and heavies, though. An S35’s roof armour is 35mm; the 96’s AP can penetrate 42mm, but only at a flat angle within 100m. Might or might not do the job, but if the Cat pilot’s going that low, s/he might as well just bomb it – save the 25s for lighter targets and all that.

The Republic 75’s can be improved without a major redesign. Change from straight black powder to semi-smokeless which will increase the muzzle velocity. Semi-smokeless can be made in the regular black powder wheel mill by incorporation of 20% nitrocellulose in the wheel mill. Second they could design a sub-caliber solid forged steel shot encased in a wooden (or other material) discarding sabot to increase the velocity further. Both of these were well known technologies by 1942. Nor do they require extensive development before entering service. They could also probably develop some type of hyper velocity AP shot as well, where the sabot is not discarded.

Couldn’t they just make a solid projectile for the derby guns and use that as an anti-tank round? I mean, it wouldn’t be as good as an APHE round, but it’d still be better than shrapnel rounds without any fuse on them or using high explosive rounds.

They could, but one of the big differences between an AP shot or shell versus a common shell is the use of forged steel rather than cast steel or even cast iron. A cast steel shot is more likely to shatter than a forged steel shot. Increasing muzzle velocity, even to a small degree, aids the shot’s penetrating power. Adding a softer nose cap over the hardened nose of the shot is also a well known (at the time) way of increasing penetration especially at the greater angles of attack, as is a blunt nose, which causes the projectile to turn into the armor rather than skid. There a a lot of simple things they can do to help the anti-armor abilities of the 75’s. Tactically using the guns in ambush in combination with other weapons such as anti-tank rifles or rocket launchers is another option. The standard doctrine for using the 57mm guns in the US Army was in ambush from the sides at ranges of no more than 500 yards in conjunction with infantry men with the 2.36 inch rocket launcher or anti-tank rifle grenades. Tanks unsupported by infantry used to working with Tanks can be very vulnerable. Just about all tanks are rather vulnerable from the sides and rear and from above. In built up areas dropping explosives or incendiary devices on the rear deck of a tank was common. Hence the need for infantry protection. The Germans had Panzer Grenadiere, the US, Armored Infantry and Russians, Tank “Marines” trained to operate with tanks.

Which one would you consider a better anti-tank weapon for immediate use, the Derby gun or the 3″/23 on a land carriage mount? Granted neither one has an armor piercing shell, but I imagine most of the Derby gun proposals could be applied to the 3″ ammo & it’s already using smokeless powder.

@Justin, the French 75 could only pen the Tiger with a German made HEAT shell. Which has much more to do with the shell than the gun. HEAT has more or less the same penetration performance regardless of shell velocity. The only advantage you get with a fast HEAT shell is a flatter shot. I don’t think the Union has any basis right now to start HEAT development. If they did then pretty much anything of appropriate bore size would make a good antitank gun. Even the muzzle loading Napoleons. The conventional AP rounds listed seem to be the right numbers for a lower velocity 75mm gun. Very similar performance to the short 75s used in M3 Lees.

They aren’t penetrating a Tiger with that. Not that they need to. The League shouldn’t have Tigers. Early war French heavies should be the toughest things they have. The Derby as it stands no needs some major work though. It’s currently a black powder weapon IIRC, and uses HE and Shrapnel ammunition. So we need to verify existing Derby guns can take cordite loads. Just because they are based on Mle 1897s doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Breech could be weaker or made of poorer steel for example. A proper cordite loaded shell needs to be developed, this should be easy enough to do. Just make a version of the Walker’s 4 inch shells rescaled to match needed dimensions. Better carriages will also be needed. Something that can serve as indirect light artillery but also has good traverse and gun depression for anti tank duties. Not to mention useful direct fire sights.

I would prefer something like 37 because it has a lot of practical advantages, a smaller and more mobile gun, with a flatter trajectory which will give you a higher chance of a first shot hit. The advantage on using the Derby is of course we already have them so assuming they hold up to smokeless you have hundreds of antitank guns ready to go. And with the proper carriage you have a useful dual purpose direct/indirect gun. It is however not a small or light gun. 3400lbs or 1500kg and the barrel is 8 feet long.

Crude wrote that without seeing Lou’s post. I think the 3’/23 popgun may actually be an even better gun. Its the same caliber, manages to be much shorter and lighter than the Mle 1897 and supposedly the Derby which having a higher muzzle velocity. I’m only seeing weight figures for the gun itself and not the mount, but the gun sans mount weighs around 700 pounds. I can’t imagine a carriage for one would weigh enough to make the whole package weigh 3400lbs. It also has a longer effective range. It’s a better gun in just about every way as far as I can tell.

Matt: Never said the Derby would pen a Tiger, only that it could with the right ordnance (and true, this also assumes the “Amerikans” got the design 100% right). 1600 ft/s should be enough to end a Carro Veloce or a Renault.

If they had a 37mm lying around, I’d say go for it; as-is, designing an AT gun from scratch is probably not a good use of resources.

Ditto on the 3-incher. Another nice thing is that as a naval piece (as William has observed), it can function as both gun and howitzer.
Only question is how to equip it. Self-propelled or towed? If SP, open-top or closed-top? Turreted? Armoured? Whole lot of decisions to make here; Fiedler’s list can’t be revealed soon enough.

Matt, for the self propelled gun carriage for the 3″/23 you could use a tank chassis for a StuG 3 type vehicle. But in general, for direct support they have the derby gun, for indirect support they’ve got those 150mm howitzers the RRP has along with 3″ and 4″ mortars, for anti-tank use they can use .50’s and type 96’s. The only gap to fill is the AA gun, although really I think for an army on the move .50’s and type 96’s ought to do fine against ground attack aircraft, and they can probably get 4″/50’s in theater to take out heavy bombers going against stationary targets. These are all weapons that are either in production or about to enter production. The 3″/23 isn’t under development(unless I’ve forgotten them mentioning that it is, which I might well have done), and to get it into production would take a lot of effort better spent elsewhere.

Matt: To my understanding, many gun-howitzers like the QF 25-lber, Soviet M1937 and lefH 18 were capable of direct and indirect fire, essentially fulfilling both surface roles. The only problem is designing the right mount.

They do have the tank chassis. Not enough information yet to figure out whether or not it’s advanced enough to carry a 3-incher, but it is a start.

General: Anything above 100mm (4″=101.6) will need to be mounted and towed on one of those 88mm FlaK carriages. Might be best to start small.

Hey, speaking of mortars, let me change my Crusader idea – swap the closed turret for a swiveling gun shield. Much more versatile, since it can still house heavy firepower, but can also be stripped and used as a troop/supply carrier or mobile mortar.

I know a 4″/50 is gonna need to be towed and probably emplaced, but since it’d be shooting at high altitude bombers over stationary targets and not at a Ba-65 strafing an allied column, that’s okay. And they’ve already got them in production, so it makes sense to use them. Although…shoot. That leaves like medium bombers open. I guess they do need something to shoot at those with.

@General, you certainly could make an assault gun like a StuG. The only problem with mechanized firepower right now is that the current ground vehicles the Union has are not exactly reliable. The current tanks are very much experimental vehicles in nature. They also break down frequently. The union needs more time developing them to make them ready for massproduction.

Also keep in mind that for Union forces we are still talking about an Army that uses muzzle loading black powder cannons. They need modern artillery yesterday and waiting on self propelled chassis for them will increase the lead time far too much. You also have to factor in the extra logistics of parts, mechanics and gasoline for all of that. The only gas and ICE mechanics they have currently are in the airwings and they cant afford to cannibalize those in the short term while new army mechanics are trained.

As to which guns to use, I think the 3″/23 from Walker and Mahan is a better choice. It is objectively better than the French 75/Derby for a start and the RRP likely has its hands full fulfilling their own army’s new demands. Also shipping tooling and the technical package for the Derby and 150 will again take time. Then you have to set up manufacturing. The 3″/23 IIRC has already been reverse engineered and can be made, they just haven’t for lack of need up to this point. Ironic considering that it can meet light artillery and AA roles quite well. Lett’s should get on it.

@Justin, those gun howitzers are pretty much exactly what I’m talking about. Would be very useful and effective. The light weight of the 3″/23 means it can also keep up with the Army even without motorized transport.

About the tanks, see above. They are prototypes. They need to be at least somewhat reliable to be ready for mass production. They have also been described as a huge resource drain in universe. They aren’t cheap. I think tanks are important but wont be key unless there is a ground war with the League. Instead of trying to build a thousand half baked WW1 style dinosaurs, low level production of prototypes should be continued with a testing program back at Balkpan with the end goal of making a proper modern tank that is reliable and massproducable. Effective towed artillery is more pressing matter at this time I think.

The first mass produced motorized vehicle should be a truck. They have a million uses and are far cheaper and easier to make than a tank. Tanks are temperamental machines. All of that weight is hard on diffs and transmissions and they break down all the time. Even in WW2 after 20 years of development tanks were constantly breaking down. The Union can’t make an armored division overnight.

Here’s some info on the 3″/23. Interestingly, there was a “landing gun” variant designed & built for shore operations the guys may be familiar with or have manuals for. Pictures at the bottom of the page show the carriage.http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-23_mk13.php

They could try a short barrel version of the 4″/50. The problem in the long haul with any 3″ is the small size of the bursting charge. Same problem with the 75mm gun in WWI and WW2. Even given a high angle mount, the shell was too small to do the damage required. How ever, good enough now beats perfection much later. I suspect manufacturing capability in the shorter time frame will drive the decision.

True, the 5″/25 was essentially a cut down 5″/50 to make it faster in training & elevating for AAA use & it worked quite well from what I’ve read. The 4″/50 cut down to 30 cal or so should still retain decent velocity with the high pressure propellant charge it’s got. They haven’t got a mechanized chassis strong enough for it yet, but it should still do well as a towed howitzer, anti-tank & AAA platform.http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-25_mk10.php

Matt: I get that, but my point is that the Union does have tracked vehicles right now. Baalkpan Arsenal would have to start from square one with a truck – aside from the Fleashooters, they don’t even have rubber tires!

Another thing is that WWII wheels (to my knowledge) don’t have the same off-road capability as treads, and most of the front line so far has been mud and/or jungle.
Is a truck or armoured car that much easier to design/build/maintain than a similarly-sized halftrack or tank? If not, it seems better to try modernizing what they’ve already got.

trucks are much cheaper, faster to build and generally more reliable and easier to work on. IIRC there has been work on trucks already they just haven’t made it to the front lines yet and a good supply of rubber has also been secured.

I don’t think either, wheeled vehicles or tracked ones will be ready for showtime in large numbers any time soon. That’s not something you can set up overnight and while the Union does have a lot of aircraft by now they have been churning them out for a few years and numbers, fuel and parts are always in short supply. The units in Africa right now have been run pretty hard and are suffering from attrition and and wear.

The fastest way, and I mean any real numbers within the next year, to get modern artillery to the front is to start making the guns and sticking them on conventional carriages meant to be drawn by horses and palkas. Once vehicles make it up the guns can me moved over and remounted. That wouldn’t be difficult, just requires some design fore-site like the Alin-Silvas.

The Union could at this point in the story start churning out 3″/23s on carriages with ammunition within a few months. A great deal of work towards that end has already unintentionally been done through other projects. Getting Republic guns produced at Balkpan requires the transport of plans and tooling at the minimum. Everything for the 3″/23 is already there. Its about as close to plug and play as you can get.

I also think installing them on older steam frigates is a great way to make them into AA pickets and also give them a huge firepower advantage over Dom ships at the same time. So that should also be looked in to.

Heavy tanks require transport. No rail lines, not even roads let alone bridges to handle 10-ton vehicles. Build motorcycles instead for the upcoming campaign around the Pass. Use zep motors.

Start building more PT’s for the Carribean and the west coast of Mexico. Build a combined air/PT base at the end of Baja. Or some of Lou’s TB’s.

Build what you know, and what your allies can learn easily, quickly. With the exception of the Dom’s, it’s going to be a defensive war, unless they sign a treaty with Halik. And it’s my guess that the Pope is going to be meeting a rope soon, more at the hands of Gravois… or Mayta.

the velocity of the 3″/23 is already down at the muzzle, how bad would it be at 500 or more yards? And if there are veterans of the 192nd tank battalion, could they recall enough of the tech from their tanks to help with development of equivalent armored vehicles.

dunno if the comment got through the first time, but in case it didn’t, here we go. While anti-tank artillery is definitely a good tank killer, and you’re right about tanks being best used like that, it is inevitable that tanks will encounter other tanks and need to kill them. Because of that, you need your tanks to be able to kill the enemy tanks when they see them. That’s why we’re discussing tank-armaments for the allies and how to deal with the league’s tanks. In a perfect world, the league’s tanks would only ever encounter allied artillery that’s ready for them, and the union’s tanks would only ever be killing league infantry, but destroyermen is not a perfect world. Hence the need for anti-tank armament.

Aside from all the Mauser 71s, the German members of the Republic was noted to have brought other equipment from SMS Amerika.

Among these were Gewehr 98s and Lugers. While the G98s are in the typical 7.92 x 57mm, the Lugers are not 9 x 19mm. Instead, they are noted to be in the original 7.65 x 21mm Parabellum cartridge (otherwise referred to as “.30 Luger”).

This would seem to indicate another possible point of divergence of the world the SMS Amerika came from when compared with the world the Destroyermen came from or our own. The Germans in our world primarily used Lugers chambered in 9x19mm though after the punishing Versailles Treaty in our history they did use some 7.65 Parabellum versions with short barrels through the 1920s.

Regardless, I think it likely that along with newer rifle production that the Republic would look into more modern handgun cartridges and perhaps even into producing some semi-automatic pistols.

how about the Republic redoing the 7.62 Mauser to the 7.62 X 25 Tokarev specs? If possible, that would be an effective submachine gun round ala the PPD or PPSh. Probably the PPD, since I don’t believe the Republic or Grand Alliance is up to stamping the parts yet.

Maybe just have the burp gun shoot 7.62 Mauser?
Still sounds better than the carbine. IIRC, there was Broomhandle with a stock and longer barrel that didn’t really catch on; pistol cartridges in themselves are generally too weak for intermediate range.

While the P08 in our timeline was in 9mm parabellum, most commercial Lugers pre-war were in 7.65 Luger aka .30 Luger. The SMS Amerika being an odd duck converted commerce raider very well may have been issued commercial model Lugers to save P08s for the regular military.

A fun bit of information, 9mm is based on 7.65. They use the same case, just in 9mm they didn’t bottleneck it. 7.65 Lugers can be converted to 9mm with just a barrel change. If the world that Amerika came from did adopt a 9mm P08 then the men on board would likely be familiar with it. 9mm is a superior round to 7.65 so it would be a good idea to switch over to it and existing tooling can be used. You only have to change the barrel and remove one step from the ammunition production process.

I know I haven’t reared my head and commented since the days of trying to figure out which battleship type Savoie was, but hot diggity ROB was really good. Was somewhat saddened by one of the deaths but heck the red shirts can’t always be the ones to die.

Now I gotta start reading other stuff or else go and read all the back catalog. Oh woe is me (heh heh)

Considering anti-tank weaponry… during the war, Japanese sucsessfully tested & implemented what they called “rubber bomb” – basically, a first approach to High Explosive Squash Head (HESH) munition. It was very lightweight and compact anti-bunker bomb, which nose part was made of rubber, so when the bomb hit, the explosive filler (TNT and ultropine) sort-of spread out on the surface of the target & make explosion area greater.

It was called “Ko-Dan”, and this small 50-kg bomb was capable of crushing a meter-thick reinforced concrete.

I suspect, that this method COULD be used for Alliance to create portable anti-tank weaponry. Either rocket-propelled, or some sort of spigot grenade launchers (Japanese actually loved grenade launchers…)

Do the Alliance or Republic have the capacity for high explosives? Courtney might know how to make nitroglycerine, but would he know TNT? I know dynamite is nitro in an inert stabilizer, would something like that be a first step in higher explosives? what could they develop with enough brisance to give an effective HE round for AT purposes?

Maybe initially, but if they’re making smokeless powder for small arms & some sort of nitrocellulose or cordite propellant for the modern naval guns, they have the means to make HE. Black powder would be an iffy proposition in a torpedo anyway, due to possible water damage to the warhead.

If you’ll recall, they began using various smokeless powders for appropriate applications and HE bursting charges as far back as Iron Gray Sea. Lawrence’s surviving kin on Samar are almost wholly engaged in making nitrocellulose–and likely many other things by now–there. And though the raw material is still most abundant on Samar, other manufactories now exist elsewhere.

The Alliance captured the plants to make Japanese Ammo @ Zanzibar, Tony Scott has many captured Japanese weapons so the plant to make the 7.7x68mm Arisaka cartridge used by the rifles and machineguns captured. See:

I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were some 6.5 x 50mmSR Arisaka rifles or a few Type 96s floating around- if not from Amagi or Hidoiaime, they could be from any of the other known (or future unknown) crossovers.

Come to think of it, 6.5×50 wouldn’t be a terrible round to standardize on actually as the recoil impulse is low and the muzzle flash is small to almost non-existent. If nothing else, it would be a suitable upgrade to some of the rifles that are still firing .30-40. Conversion to 6.5x50mm would be easier than to a higher powered cartridge like .30-06

The 6.5×50 had a lighter bullet than the 30-40 and a higher muzzle velocity. 139 grain bullet versus 220 grain bullet. 2475 fps versus 2000-2200 fps. The 6.5×50 was a semi-rimmed case which most people think would make it’s use in automatic firearms easier than the rimmed case of the .30-40; Especially in box magazines.

Not necessarily, penetration is related to striking energy, resistance to bullet deformation and sectional density of the bullet, as well as resistance to yaw upon penetration. Most military 6.5 have a good sectional density and do a good job of penetration. 6.5 M-S was preferred by some elephant hunters for brain shots because of its good penetration on bone.The 6.5×50 can not be used in the blitzer and the thompson as they are blow back operation. The 6.5×50 requires a locked breach. It’s also too long for both these actions which are built around the 45 auto cartridge.

It wasn’t that the 6.5 was underpowered, it was that the .264 diameter bullet makes it difficult to develop a good tracer and AP rounds. The 7.7mm had a bigger diameter bullet which made making these specialized rounds easier. The US in the 20’s actually felt that the 6.5 mm had better wounding effects than larger caliber, but that the small diameter made it too difficult to develop quality tracer and AP rounds, so they developed the .276 Pederson with it’s larger diameter bullet for this reason.

The Thompson isn’t pure blowback, its better described as delayed blowback. In principle delayed blowback can be made to work with powerful cartridges. See the various roller delayed guns HK has made. However I’m not sure how well the Blish system would scale. Its a very different beast compared to the roller delayed system.

As for the blizter, yeah its a tube gun like the sten or M3. Straight blowback and stupid simple. .45 is pretty much the most powerful thing you would want to use with that system. Any more and it would either become too heavy to be practical or would be very dangerous.

Standardization is always to be strived for, my buddies and I endeavor to ensure that all our same caliber weapons will shoot the same ammo, for example. But the Allies aren’t really using that many different things, and there has been a significant effort to standardize. Gray’s main armament is 5.5 primarily because they were already making liners for Amagi’s salvaged secondaries. Otherwise, 4″-50 has become the norm and the 3.7″s, etc., are in the process of being replaced. As for “small” arms, the Grand Alliance–not including the Republic–have standardized as quickly as they could upon .45ACP, .50-80, .30-06, and .50 BMG. Small lots of .30-40 are still made, as are other even smaller lots of (I bet) “spoiler caliber.” The stuff to make these was prepared during evaluation and still exists. They may well be adopted at some point and it makes sense to maintain the capacity, and making small lots is not that difficult. In any event, until they can mass produce an entirely new battle rifle the various “main” calibers still make sense and all have specific strengths and uses. The 6.5s are probably being fed by relatively small lots as well since they never recovered enough to supply a significant force, and other stuff was already being made.
As for the Republic, they have standardized pretty well themselves, for them. Their rifles and pistols do not shoot the same cartridge but the bullet is the same diameter and the barrels can be bored on the same machine. Obviously, they’d require different rifling twists, but a .43 cal made sense for them. An Alliance-wide standardization would be ideal–eventually–but think about it: The US and Brits fought two world wars together and never standardized.

On the note of the Republic, I wonder if we’ll see more modernized versions of the guns used by their Princeps monitors. German made 203mm or 210mm guns would bring some rather sharp teeth to the Alliance. Of course, the key issue would be the shell and charge hoists, as these limit rate of fire the most out of any single component of the turrets.

Great War-level tech means they’d probably be able to do a Tankgewehr, maybe a large-calibre Panzerbuchse or Wz.35. It’d be a nasty anti-material/anti-dinosaur/sniper rifle, but medium or heavy tanks’ll probably need a battery of Derbys.

Say, I wonder if the Grik rockets have enough energy to launch a shaped charge? Something like a (very) primitive RPG would be handy too.

Black Powder deflagrates at a sub-sonic velocity. As the pressure goes up, the rate of deflagration goes down, which is the opposite of smokeless powder. Black powder and smokeless power are almost impossible to get to detonate. Urbanski, in his 1962 4 volume work on explosives, described experimentally trying to get smokeless to detonate. He finally succeeded, but had to use very large grain artillery propellant and initiate it with picric acid. Smokeless propellants usually have a negative oxygen balance so they produce a lot of carbon monoxide, a light voluminous gas good for pushing. High explosives (those that detonate) have a positive oxygen balance so they produce a lot of carbon dioxide, a dense gas suitable to transmit shock. To get a detonation, the rate of chemical change in the explosive has to exceed the speed of sound in that substance. The denser the substance the higher the speed of sound in that substance.

Well, the rockets can push a payload of copper balls (figure half-inch?) plus a bursting charge a mile or so up, I would thing they could make an RPG motor, but it’d be worthless without the warhead. Better off as a bombardment rocket. But hate to think of what Grik rockets could do to Republic cavalry.

Looking at the ceiling last night after putting down DD, and thought, Republic landing barges with eggbeater motors… Screw that, put a single bank radial on them and come up with a 40 knot airboat…

It’s important to keep in mind that given the way the Grik rockets are described, they are nowhere near an RPG or any kind of shoulder fired weapon. They sound a lot more like a Congreve rocket. Simple, black powder things that detonate on impact. Essentially giant bottle rockets. Of course the Grik have improved them with time fuses but they are still pretty limited in their use. They are also wildly inaccurate and unreliable. About the only good thing about them is how cheap and easy they can be made. They have to be employed in huge mass volleys to be effective.

Apparently you can dissolve nitroglycerin in nitrocellulose and then add some solidifying materials (I assume stuff like saw dust) and can get a pretty decent solid rocket fuel. I know nitrocellulose is being produced by the Union and I’m pretty sure nitroglycerine is as well. If anyone knew enough about rockets to know that could be done then they could probably start making them sooner than you’d think.

Certainly. They clearly used a ’71 as their original pattern. Might’ve even had some ’98s to look at. Obviously had Maxims. So yeah, they can make ’71s with magazines. Lots of reasons they wouldn’t have to start with, but no real reason they can’t now. Might even convert existing rifles.

I would think the conversions would be how’d they would start out, and then once the concept was proven and they had the basic tooling together the Republic would change the main production lines to the magazine conversions.

As with the Allin-Silva rifles, I reckon the next step would be to rotate the originals out of the front as they are replaced with the new production magazine rifles. Then, the old rifles can be converted and sent back out, or issued to reserve units.

Actually, there aren’t really that many different small arms cartridges in production. .30-06, .45ACP (which can use the same basic case)and .50-80 and .50BMG (the barrels of which can both be bored on the same machines). There are a few “short run” calibers running around, like .30-40 and probably the “spoiler” caliber (I think) but that’s about it, and won’t require much diversion of production. As for Allied standardization, the Impies are going to Union designs but the Republic already has their own stuff that works and they’re geared up to make it. Getting one group or another to change over entirely at this point would not be feasible. Maybe in peacetime–like NATO did. Otherwise, I’ll point out that the US and UK fought two World Wars together and never even came close to standardizing. Even if they thought it was a good idea, in theory, it was not practical in time of war.

If captured the Japanese Arisaka rifle cartridge factory would add a cartridge to feed captured Japanese arms. I’m sure the Konashi would want the cartridges made. Also we have the 25mm cartridge and other larger caliber rounds. During the American Civil War Confederate units became combat ineffective due to receiving the wrong cartridge for the multiple firearms used by the south.

“Economic control works differently.
And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of yours;
“It’s a poor man’s atom-blaster that doesn’t work both ways.”
pp 226 Foundation & Empire

“To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with little things useless in war,but vital to prosperity and profits.
pp 224-5 Foundation and Empire

“The machines in the factories will, one by one, begin to fail. Those industries which we have changed from first to last with our new atomic gadgets will find themselves very suddenly ruined. The heavy industries will find themselves en masse and at a stroke, the owners of nothing but scrap machinery that won’t work”
pp 223 Foundation & Empire

*As the battlewagons closed in for the kill, and huge geysers of water, caused by shells from their Main batteries were sprouting up all around the GAMBIER BAY, the gun Captain of her lone five-inch gun is reliably reported to have said, “Don’t worry, fellows, we’re sucking them in to 40mm. Range!”.….pp 149

*”Breathed prayers of thanks for their miraculous deliverance, some young joker on the flight deck of the FANSHAW BAY yelled up to the bridge, “Better watch ’em, Cap’n—or they’llget away!”……pp 149

*”The main battery of this great warship of ours consisted of one five-inch gun. This was mounted on the stern, and would not bear forward of the beam—a pretty clear indicator that if we met the TIRPITZ, we were expected to entice her into a running battle than slug it out with yardarm to yardarm.” …..pp 148

**Jeeps had an antiaircraft battery of 40mm. pom-pom and 20mm guns. We released areological balloons from the flight deck, and the gun crews competed to see which could burst the balloons with the least number of shots.”….pp 148

“Several of my officers pointed out a section in our current (Navy) regulations which could be interpreted as still authorizing payment of prize money. We estimated the U-505’s value as being several million dollars, and (we!?)visualized the possibility of getting fat checks from The US Treasury as we dragged our booty home. But that jackpot was never divided up. We found out when we got home that about thirty years previously some nosey and officious Congressman had repealed the law on which that section of the regulations depended”(The clearest case of Economic Piracy ever recorded {The US Government Giveth as the IRS Taxman taketh.}).” pp-215

Clear The Decks by Daniel V. Gallery
Warner Books, New York- 1949

Yesterday, marked two somber unheralded historical seminal events and uncelebrated anniversaries, which mark an end and closure of an era violently and visibly scarred by turbulent and calcified social, cultural, technological economic upheavals and change.
Gulf of Tonkin Incident 1964
Welcome home! To all those unforgotten colleagues of Korea!

And you are assuming that the glue being use for the last 200 years or so by the lemurian in a marine environment is inadiquate? My feelings are that it is fully capable of dooing the job at taylor has hinted several times.

“Our course of future history, did not count on brilliant heroics but on the broad sweeps of economics and sociology. So the solutions to the various crises must be achieved by the forces that become available to us at the time.”
pp 222 Foundation & Empire

Economic control works differently. And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of yours; “It’s a poor man’s atom-blaster that doesn’t work both ways.”
pp 226 Foundation & Empire

“Why they don’t even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that structure burnt out.”
pp 224 Foundation & Empire

A short noteworthy Treatise on, and the best ever layman’s explanation and descriptionof the American Navy’s pre WW-II torpedo dilemma can be dissected, discussed, analyzed and found in Harry Homewood’s “Final Harbor” novel.
McGraw Hill Book Company 1980 Chapter 16 – pp 152 to 157.

Charlie- You’ve got quite the Expletive Depleted sense of humor!!!
Only suggest a little more of the WW- II Meuse River- Belgium be included.
Also, your LSI need needs more of an Evinrude Wizard influence.
Good Job You Dreamer You!

WARNING SLIGHT RIVER OF BONES SPOILER.
Nestor Menar was the artist of the first Bekiaa crossing the Ungee River rather than Washington crossing the Delaware River. The second drawing produced with the aid of Taylor Anderson having along Thai taxi tail with a low freeboard barge made quick by the engineers. OK can spoilers be posted today 1 August, or do we need to wait until 8,10,18?

Hmm, I’ve been thinking about U-112 quite a bit. While it’s not the greatest submarine, it does have a rather respectable armament, especially while surfaced. Now the real question is, now that it has defected to the Alliance, will it be refitted as a gunboat like S-19, or will it remain as is?

You’re right Don, but I think Henry’s new here and probably isn’t aware of the no spoilers for . . . how long? I forget . . . rule. Don’t think I want to delete somebody’s first post. Welcome aboard, Henry.

I think the old timeline was a month. It just seems longer this time since the book came out later. That said, it’s probably best to follow Charles’s lead on this since, though there aren’t that many frequent contributors here, a LOT of people check out what we write. Thoughts?

I think we somehow wound up with that date after a survey on FB. Don’t think Charles was happy with it, but went with the flow.
Personally, I’m all for the one month after release date, which would be 13 Aug.

I suggested the first of the month after the book comes out for spoilers on the Assn. I am unaware of how the date was established here or where it is posted. Henry Breinig the Destroyermen Wiki has a page for the U-112 https://destroyermen.wikia.com/wiki/U-112
Charlie

Video on .30-06 Chauchat:https://www.full30.com/video/a07788998ae940b39a7b569e5921766f
The Chaychat and the BAR were intended in the Great War to be run by a three man team; gunner, loader and scout who carried extra ammo and provided flank and rear security for the gun team. The automatic rifle(as opposed to the light machine gun) was intended to provide suppressive fire along with rifle grenades against entrenched machine guns to allow the riflemen and hand bombers to get close enough to finish the job. It is primarily an offensive weapon.

I’m wondering if the electrical plant on the Grey CL-1 has been upgraded fron 125v DC to 440v AC 3 phase? The electrical loads on the ships are only going to grow. Three phase lets them move more power around efficiently. 440 3 pz was the coming thing for ships in the late 30’s, the crew on the Walker would have know of it at least. Plus three phase would be very helpful for powering industry. The other option would be 2 phase 4 wire. But in the late 30’s it was on it’s way out. It was popular in the mines for reason.

It’s come to my attention that the 10″/45s on Amagi would likely be outranged by WWII 8″ guns (27km against 30+). Any idea how the DD-verse IJN was planning to hunt cruisers with her, given that said cruisers would likely have a speed advantage as well?

Er, they may increase her guns elevation to give more range. Japanese loved extreme elevations.

And the role of Japanese battlecruisers was NOT to hunt enemy cruisers. Their main function was supposed to, in nighttime attack, break through cruiser screen around USN battleline, thus allowing the Japanese destroyers to make a torpedo tun against USN battlewagons.